©he 
G[oming $ehool 



B 



Ellen E. Kenton 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Shelf -.^.3S 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Coming School 



BY 



ELLEN E. KENYON 



A SEQUEL TO 

THE YOUNG IDEA 

BY 

Caroline B. Le Row 




'A good education is that which gives to the body and to 

the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of 

which they are capable. 1 ' — Plato. 



OFCO/v Q 

JiW 24 1889,-^ 

~ INGTON' 



CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
104 — 106 Fourth Avenue, New York 



; 



Copyright, 

1889, 

By O. M. DUNHAM. 

All rights reserved. 



Press W. L. Mershon & Co., 
Rahway, N. J. 






DEDICATION. 



TO OUR SOLDIER TEACHER OF THE WEST, 

COL. FRANCIS W. PARKER, 

AND TO ALL MY FELLOW TEACHERS WHO ARE 
STRIVING, UNDER THE WEIGHT OF PONDER- 
OUS SYSTEMS, TO WIN FOR INNOCENT 
CHILDHOOD ITS NATURAL DUES, 

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction, i 

Part I. — Primary Education — " Objects." 

Chapter I. The New Education, - - 31 
" II. Possibilities of the Individual 

Object, 37 

" III. Special Lessons, ... 56 

" IV. A Question of Date, - - 66 

" V. Present Promise, - 79 

Part II. — Secondary Education — Subjects. 

Chapter I. Enter Specialist, 95 

" II. The " Difficulties," - - 100 

" III. How it Will be Done, - - 106 

" IV. Where it is Done, - - - 113 

" V. The Alleged Known, - - 127 

" VI. Effects Past and Present, - 130 

Part III.— Tertiary Education— Classics, - 134 

Part IV.— Special Education— Pursuits, - 140 

Conclusion, - *44 

i iii 



PREFACE. 



The author had the honor of reviewing Miss 
Le Row's Young Idea in the columns of a daily 
paper. A column seemed but a cramped space 
in which to do justice to a book destined to be 
so grand a stimulus to educational reform. Of 
course, " justice " was but hinted at. How to 
get the book well before the thinking public, 
and how to get its readers to see in it not, as 
some reviewers had it, an exaggeration of the 
incidental evils of the common-school system, 
but a faint suggestion of educational mistakes 
most blighting in their effects, were vexing prob- 
lems, to which was added a third : How to sup- 
plement this exposure of the lingering bad 
with a presentation of the entering good. 
The hope was expressed in the review that 
Miss Le Row would follow her representa- 
tion of the Young Idea in toil and darkness 
with a picture of the sunlit growth that comes 
to it in schools where its nature and destiny are 
better regarded. The author promptly urged 
the reviewer to prepare the sequel thus asked 



vi Preface 

for. The answer was a shake of the head. No 
time ! But a voice kept crying, "Woe unto thee 
if thou preach not the gospel ! " and the resolve 
was made that there should be time for this if 
for nothing else. 

" Why not," said Expediency, " partly com- 
pile the book from the many bits of expostula- 
tion, argument, and exposition already published? 
Surely gleanings from two years of active work 
in this very line of effort ought to furnish much 
toward a more or less complete treatment of the 
subject." So the book is partly compiled from 
former writings. 

To make a " harmonious whole " which should 
be in part composed of argumentative scraps, 
each endowed with more or less of isolated com- 
pleteness, was a task before whose difficulty a 
greater literary skill than that of the present 
author might well hesitate. It is hoped, how- 
ever, that the work will gain in force what it 
lacks in finish, and that it will be regarded less 
from a literary than from an educational stand- 
point. A former experience has made the au- 
thor acquainted with a class of critics to whom 
the name of Formalists seems best to apply, and 
with whom the motive and " true inwardness " 
of a work weigh little. But there is also a much 
larger and more esteemed class of reviewers, 
best designated as Humanists, who deal tender- 
ly with an inartistic construction for the sake of 
the embodied truth they are so quick to see. 



Preface, vii 

To these, with gratitude for former appreciation, 
this book is fearlessly confided, as the result of 
sixteen years of striving against formalism in 
education, of longing and hoping for a deeper 
insight and more natural methods, of welcoming 
every ray of light that broke in through the 
slowly rifting clouds and seemed to promise 
more — as the more direct result of the last three 
years of observation, which have shown the ed- 
ucational question to be a circle of difficulties 
that only a roused public can break. 

To reach the public with anything more than 
a superficial discussion of school matters — what 
a problem ! If it were only the subjects of light, 
heating, ventilation, air-space, number of chil- 
dren to a class, etc. — but the nature of teaching ! 
And yet, are there not reform associations of 
citizens busily searching for the central evil ? 
May it not be possible to put them on the right 
scent, and, through them, break the traditions of 
the ages by which Knowledge, rather than Char- 
acter, is made the end and aim of common-school 
education ? Only a few isolated minds, whose 
teachings have been accepted in theory but not 
in practice, have shown the paramount impor- 
tance of early work in eduction. May it not be 
possible to bring this principle home to many 
by showing the direct result of its neglect, and, 
through those many, to many more, by that con- 
tagious quality that inheres in earnest moral 
conviction ? At any rate, the attempt is worth 
making. Hence the present volume. 



THE COMING SCHOOL 



INTRODUCTION. 

The explanations of science are all so beauti- 
fully simple. Ignorance heaps wonder upon 
wonder to explain away some lesser wonder, un- 
til a mountain of absurdities confronts the puz- 
zled reason of man. The world looks on, ad- 
mires, doubts, and waits. Science whispers and 
the mountain of absurdities dissolves away, leav- 
ing, sometimes, a hole in human consciousness, 
whose painfully distended walls close but slowly 
about the little kernel of truth that has come to 
take the place of so much monstrosity. 

An infant age set the little stars in crystal 
spheres to keep them from falling to the mighty, 
central earth. Science'showed them to be indi- 
vidual centers, mightier than the earth, and held 
in their countless ethereal spheres by one simple, 
all-pervading force. The domes of crystal 
melted, the stars did not fall, human apprehen- 
sion rested, and human curiosity turned to some- 
thing else. 

Something must hold the earth up, so inven- 
tion poised it on the shoulders of a huge man, 



2 The Coming School. 

No one asked what the man had to eat and 
drink, but some one did venture to ask what he 
stood on, so invention gave him something to stand 
on. But that, too, needed something to hold it 
up. At last invention got down to the rock, and 
there weary inquiry stopped, seeing the end- 
lessness of invention's resources. Science after 
a while reversed the supposed relations of sun 
and earth, and whispered three words: Gravita- 
tion, motion, inertia. The teasing, downward 
chase after a bottom rock ceased forever, and 
the enraptured soul of man gazed on the sublime 
simplicity of nature. 

Disease beset the human frame. Ignorance 
suggested, " Witches ! Exorcise them ! Burn 
them ! " Shocked science flew to the rescue, 
and showed that disease was but the conse- 
quence of violated law. 

Parental yearning said : " Lo, my son ! How 
shall I make a man of him ? " The doctors of 
all the ologies each cried out, " Give him my 
ology," and the clamor was so great that the 
frightened and confused father, seeing no reason 
to choose one ology before another, gave the 
poor child all. The little victim shut his eyes 
and gulped them down, too bewildered even to 
ask why. 

Parental ambition of a grosser mold asked : 
" How shall I enable my son to get more than his 
share of worldly goods and immunities ? " 
Prompt came the answer : " All he needs is 



The Coming School. 3 

the three R's and pluck." " What an easy so- 
lution ! And how fortunate that his future can 
be so cheaply cared for ! If only his food and 
raiment could be made to cost so little, what a 
bank-book might become his with which to 
start in life. The three R's ! Why, he can 
learn that A is A and B is B while playing with 
his letter-blocks. My office-boy can run home 
half an hour a day and teach him his primer. 
The chambermaid can hear him his tables, 
and as for writing — slates and copy-books are 
cheap. All he needs is a little occasional cor- 
rection to give him a good, legible hand. And 
I'll see that he works ! But stop, there's an 
easier way yet, and possibly, in the long run, a 
cheaper way. The public school ! They pay 
the teacher $40 a month. She teaches a 
hundred and twenty children. That is thirty- 
three cents a month for tuition for my child — a 
mere item ! I suppose, if I were to ascertain 
the cost of building and heating the school- 
houses, and otherwise running the Department 
of Education, I should find that fifty cents a 
month would cover the whole business. At any 
rate, I pay the school tax, and I may as well 
avail myself of the benefits," etc., etc. So the 
little victim goes to school. 

These two parents have been conscientiously 
at work for generations, giving their children 
what seems needful to make them " men," and 
" successful men," and sternly closing the ear 



4 The Coming School. 

of sympathy to the timid, almost unconscious 
appeal that has come from the line of little mar- 
tyrs, " Give us rest and food." And all the 
while science has been waiting for a hearing, 
with only here and there an attentive ear into 
which to speak the words, " Cease your cramming 
and feed them." 

" Feed them ! " comes back with a doubting 
shake of the head. " That sounds ominously 
simple. So did the three R's, and you see the 
edifice they have built — the Public School — how 
fearfully and wonderfully made ! Before your 
feeding establishment can reach an equal per- 
fection, it will have to go through a great many 
experimental stages, and meantime our children 
are growing up. We can not let you experiment 
on this precious material. Better to endure the 
ills we have, even though semi-starvation be 
among them, than fly to others that we know 
not of." 

Nevertheless, a few lent their children to the 
" experiments " of Froebel and Pestalozzi with- 
out any disastrous results so far as heard from ; 
and a few still risk their children's mortal and 
immortal futures by sending them to " that play 
school " of Col. Parker's, out in Illinois. 

But, for the most part, formalism still holds its 
own. It is almost as complacent and prosperous 
now as in the days when it put Socrates to 
death. It unblushingly puts its spurious wares 
on the market and says, " See how fine ! " It 



The Coming School. 5 

audaciously claims the honor of what genius it 
has failed to kill, what lucidity it has failed to 
cloud, what candor it has failed to turn to false- 
hood. It still stands because it has disabled the 
vast majority of its pupils from seeing what an 
impostor it is. It does not even know itself for 
a malefactor. 

It takes the wholesome food prepared by 
science, chops it into chunks of given sizes, 
rolls the chunks into indigestible balls, and drops 
them whole down the victim's throat, timing 
their administration by the ticking of the watch. 
That a few survive the long-continued process 
and retain some power of mental digestion, is 
due to unusual natural vigor, or to other condi- 
tions not in the power of formalism to reach. 

Says formalism, " The time has come for the 
child to learn something about the earth. First 
present the earth as a whole to him, then its 
parts. That is the way he learned about the 
apple." 

" But," says educational science, " the mode 
of study you so recklessly prescribe for a young 
child is an impossibility." 

The child first knows an apple as a whole ; 
granted, but the apple is a visible, tangible, com- 
prehendable whole, around which his infant 
mind wraps itself as easily as his baby fist en- 
closes a bon-bon. At the first attempt he makes 
an aimless clutch at the bon-bon. At the first 
view of the apple he gets a vague impression of 



6 The Coming School. 

something red and round and solid. At the next 
view he (presumably) recognizes the apple by 
these qualities as something seen before, and 
perhaps gains some further knowledge of it. By 
repeated acquaintance with the apple he learns 
of its smoothness, its crispness, its sweetness ; 
that it has a thin skin, a core of little shells con- 
taining seeds, an indentation of the surface at 
each end of the core, and in one of these a stem. 
By comparison he learns that some apples are 
not so red, not so crisp, not so smooth, not so 
sweet as others. This, the child's objective 
knowledge of the apple, is acquired by handling 
it, looking at it on all sides, cutting it up and 
tasting it. It could be acquired in no other 
way. No one will contend for a moment that 
merely telling the child about the apple would 
give him this knowledge. 

To give him a knowledge of the earth in the 
same order (" first the whole and then its parts") 
would require the putting of the earth into his 
hands that he might weigh it, feel its rough- 
ness and its wetness, its solidity and its tempera- 
ture, see its glistening waters, its barren deserts, 
its snowy wastes, its verdant plains, the varying 
colors of its vegetation, the varying aspects of 
its seasons, and the myriad forms of life luxuri- 
ating upon its surface. 

This can not be done. We can not present this 
wonderful whole, even to the imagination of the 
child, for two reasons : First, the complexity of 



The Coming School. 7 

the concept is such as to place it quite beyond 
the grasp of the most highly developed adult 
imagination. Second, the child, at the age at 
which geography is usually taken up as a study, 
is still slavishly dependent upon the direct obser- 
vation of objects for all real knowledge. De- 
scribe even a simple " unknown " to him, and his 
failure to recognize it when it is subsequently 
presented in substance will prove that your effort 
to lead him to form a correct mental picture has 
been vain. How much more futile must any 
attempt be to build in the almost infantile mind 
an ideal earth ! The geographical globe is of 
absolutely no assistance. You tell the child that 
he lives upon a ball like that, only vastly larger. 
The mind closes before such an incomprehensi- 
bility and refuses to admit it, even while the lips 
prattle back to you replies that evidence a blind 
faith in what you state. You try to make him 
see the coast line as such, the rivers and moun- 
tains as such. You are attempting too much. 
He has never seen a familiar pond outlined ; 
consequently, that wavy line can not possibly 
suggest to him a muddy margin, a sandy shore, 
a pebbly beach, a wave-washed cliff, or any other 
meeting of the land and water. He has never 
seen a range of neighboring hills represented in 
drawing by little irregular marks ; so those that 
are placed upon the map to indicate mountains 
mean nothing to him. He has never seen the 
course of a well-known brook traced in a crooked 



8 The Coming School. 

line upon the blackboard, so the crooked lines 
on the map fail to make him think of rivers. 
The imagination of the average child is so inert 
at this age (at least in regard to any prosaic use) 
that even after much description and many- 
laudable endeavors to make the subject extremely 
interesting, the map will remain to him a blank, 
scrawled over with crooked lines and hard names. 
An exceptionally bright pupil will form some 
crude conception of the realities you have tried 
to picture to him, and will tell back something 
of what you have added to his inner world ; but 
rest assured, you have added nothing to the 
inner world of the average child. 

It is to such mischievous doctrine as this that 
must be attributed the very general failure of 
our schools to impart lasting knowledge. " I 
knew all that at school, but I have forgotten it," 
is the common apology of the ignorance that 
graduates every year from the tutelage of such 
educators. Their pupils conjugate the verbs 
lay and lie until they can do it in their sleep, and 
yet they talk of " laying down for a nap " — and 
know no better. They recite from the Astronomy 
with a brilliancy that wins them golden laurels, 
and a year after they leave school they have lost 
the distinction between inferior and superior 
planets. They demonstrate that the angle a b c 
is necessarily equal to the angle x y z, and will 
tell you that " two square inches" and "two 
inches square " are synonymous expressions. 



The Coming School. 9 

They reduce longitude to time, and if you asked 
them to reduce latitude to time they would do 
that too. They study the indestructibility of 
matter, and the impression remains with them 
that after a conflagration there is less material 
in existence than before. They define inertia, 
and fail to observe how strongly that property 
inheres in their masters. 

Formalism is a weed of vigorous and pernic- 
ious growth. It springs from the superstitious 
awe with which the ignorant have always re- 
garded knowledge. " Give us knowledge ! " has 
been the cry of the populace. " He who gives us 
the most knowledge shall have charge of our 
schools." Formalism won the race, and, though 
the " knowledge " did not stay with the open- 
mouthed recipients, the fault was never laid to 
the manner of giving it — at least by the public. 
Luckily, evolution recognized other elements in 
youth's environment than the schools, and, 
spite of them, the prayer of Socrates finds 
voice in human hearts even to-day : " Make me 
beautiful within ! " The coming school will 
make some crude attempt to answer this 
prayer. 

The following questions were some time since 
placed by the author before the readers of the 
New York School Journal : 

1. As primary teaching is less understood than 
is that of older pupils and higher branches, does 
it not follow that the best educational ability 



io The Coming School. 

should be employed where the most research is 
still rieeded ? 

2. As the obscurity of the child's thoughts 
and the sensitiveness of his mind are greatest at 
the beginning, should not the consequently in- 
tricate task of early training be entrusted to the 
most competent and responsible of teachers? 

3. As early influences are conceded to be by 
far the most potent in the formation of charac- 
ter, should not the best educators be engaged 
in the administering of early influences ? 

4. As the greater number of our children leave 
school long before completing their course, and 
go to work to help support those higher institu- 
tions in whose benefits they can never share, is 
it not the peculiar province of the public school 
to provide especially competent instructors for 
the children whose course is thus abridged ? 

Three of the answers that came to these ques- 
tions are selected for incorporation in this argu- 
ment : 

Rosa Dartle is decidedly revolutionary. She evi- 
dently wants me, a grammar teacher, to leave my " ogra- 
phies" and my "ologies" and come down to hard-pan. 
" See the bug on the mug." Zoology and geology — perhaps 
I might still find use for my scientific lore. How I would 
enjoy the novelty of the thing ! But the " How ? " would 
take worlds of study. Have I not studied enough ! I sup- 
pose Rosa Dartle, with her serious view of things, would 
answer, "You may have studied enough for a grammar 
class, but not enough for a primary class ! " That is rich, 
too ! Still I seem to see some truth in it. Indeed, per- 



The Coming School. II 

haps, it holds the clew to all my difficulties. The children 
are so dull of comprehension — can it be because their 
earlier teachers had not studied enough ? I should like to 
go away down to the roots of things, dig them up and plant 
them over again, even if I had to learn how, first. I do get 
so weary of butting against dullness and trying to interest in 
intelligent subjects pupils who have apparently never had 
an insight into anything. Sometimes I wish the fairy 
prince would come and deliver me. Rosa Dartle means 
well — but the flay. It will be many a long day before I 
shall hear the sweet accents of the trustee saying, " Miss 
W — you are a successful teacher — come and take a pri- 
mary class in my school. I will make it worth your while." 
So I fear I must remain in the position of 

Little Sally Water. 

Elocutionary Drill in the Primary. — Perhaps the 
Rosa Dartle idea deserves encouragement. A day spent in 
visiting recently resulted in more than one observation 
pointing directly that way. I witnessed the great difficulty 
with which a teacher of elocution developed the power of 
modulation in her class of young ladies. She was practic- 
ing them upon the sentence, " Millions for defense, but 
not one cent for tribute," requiring a change of emphasis 
with each repetition. At first "millions " received the stress 
of voice, while " not one cent " was dignified by a slow 
impressiveness of utterance. Then " defense " and " trib- 
ute" were made about equally emphatic, etc., etc., etc. I 
was surprised at the actual inability of some of the pupils 
to make certain words emphatic. They seemed to know 
where the stress was wanted, but did not know how to get 
it there. I had witnessed a similar exercise in a primary 
class in which children found no difficulty in imitating the 
intonations of the teacher, er even in responding to an or- 
der like this : " Speak the sentence again and emphasize 
has." I spoke of this to the teacher of elocution, and her 
reply was : " Yes, that is one of the drills these girls 
should have had when they were quite small." I thought 



12 The Coming School. 

of Rosa Dartle, and that the time to give the will free con- 
trol over any power is when that power is in its budding- 
time. A friend, who teaches a graduating class, com- 
plained to me the same day of the exactions of her grade. 
I asked her whether it was the amount of work in the grade 
or the incapacity of the pupils that troubled her most. She 
quickly answered : "Oh, the grade would be nothing, if 
the pupils were equipped for its work." Teachers are slow 
to make these admissions to trustees, because they imply a 
discontent with those at work below them. It is not the 
workers that are at fault, but the system. Observer. 

Rosa Dartle Again. — I have often wondered at the 
inconsistency of school directors who say with impressive 
earnestness to the primary teacher, ' ' Your work is funda- 
mental ; all that comes after will depend upon it"; and yet 
place her in charge there where the w*)rk is of the first im- 
portance, instead of bringing down some of her more ex- 
perienced sisters from the less "fundamental" giammar 
classes. The questions of Rosa Dartle led me to think the 
old thoughts o'er again. Is it possible somebody is making 
the discovery that where the prime work is to b« done the 
prime workers are needed ? How long it takes us to put a 
sound theory into practice ! It is certainly true that the 
early work is fundamental ; and yet the most inexperienced 
and inefficient teachers are continually placed in the pri- 
mary department. What Wonder that the grammar teach- 
ers have to work hard ? " The stupidity of the children," is 
the universal complaint, rather than the difficulty of the 
studies. What wonder that the children are stupid, when 
their minds receive such careless treatment in the budding- 
time? Florence Nightingale. 

The theory that it takes a higher grade of 
qualification to teach a Sixth Reader than a 
Primer belongs to a dying age. Close students 
of educational work are, day by day, tracing 
back the surprising incompetencies found among 



The Coming School. 13 

higher grade pupils to mistaken teaching done 
in the primary grades by untrained and poorly 
paid teachers. Let the " higher grade teachers" 
bring their profundity and their brightness and 
all the wealth of their experience to bear on the 
development of early childhood, and the young 
girl graduate will find more fitting employment 
in drilling on the map of Europe and the rules 
of rhetoric. If novice teachers must " learn by 
doing" they should be placed where they can 
do the least possible harm. They should never 
be allowed to tamper with the mind of a young 
child. If bad teaching is mischievous in the 
grammar department, it is ruinous in the prim- 
ary. Atonement for it in the upper grades is 
impossible. No educational machinery can set 
the dormant faculties into full and healthy action 
after the time for their normal development is 
past. Hold a baby's arm inactive for five years, 
and you may spend fifty, in a vain attempt to 
teach him a skillful use of it. The mental 
powers are at least as sensitive to neglect or op- 
pression as the physical. Mistakes in this most 
delicate field of labor, moreover, affect a greater 
number of pupils than those committed in higher 
grades. The greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber, the greatest good to all y the only good to 
the poor, consists in securing the best available 
teaching skill for the primary children. Instead 
of making it an object for the teachers to take 
the grammar classes, it should be made an ob« 



14 The Coming School. 

ject with them to study and train the little 
ones. 

Says one of our Formalists : " The reduction 
of salaries should fall upon lower-grade teachers, 
for two reasons : i. Their work affects but one 
class ; 2. Their places are more easily filled." 
Only a printer, wealthy in what the children call 
" wonder-marks," could properly punctuate these 
sentences. " Their work affects but one class !" 
Since the work of each grade is " affected " by 
all previous work, whose work is it that affects 
but one class ? 

" Their places are more easily filled." That 
is sadly true, under the vanishing ideal. Em- 
ploying boards that still believe the early work 
of the educator to be mechanical, find no diffi- 
culty in filling vacancies in the lower grades. 
Those, however, who give a more thoughtful at- 
tention to this all-important subject, realize that 
the lower down in the school course the vacancy 
exists, the more it cries aloud for a picked 
teacher. Next in value to the supervisory work, 
comes that of the lowest class-room. It is a 
mistake to say that less knowledge is necessary 
to properly teach the lower grades than the 
higher. The mind can not have the scope neces- 
sary for this far-reaching work without a real 
and extended knowledge of nature, men, and 
books. 

To make truths real to the minds of young 
children ; to awaken the untrained perceptions 



The Coming School. 15 

and lead them through the realm of the visible 
and into the realm of the unseen ; to watch oyer 
each budding faculty and cultivate it just enough 
for the best interests of symmetry and growth ; 
surely all this requires a higher degree of culture 
than the correcting of compositions and the 
teaching of denominate numbers to pupils whose 
faculties are all in full play. Surely the little 
children require the artist teachers if there are 
any. " But," says the grammar teacher, " the 
faculties of our pupils are not all in full play." 
Then go downstairs and help in the work of 
early development, and talk to your trustees 
until they see that your work there is of greater 
value than where you are. You are at present 
stationed in a grammar class to patch and cover 
up with your good teaching the defects in the 
work of weaker teachers below you. How much 
more you could accomplish for your pupils by 
taking them at an early age and giving them 
real conceptions instead of empty forms upon 
which their mentality must starve ! You "would 
not care to make the change ? — do not think 
you quite understand young children ?" Then 
there is something in primary work for you, a 
grammar teacher, to learn. Go and learn it ; 
and feel, for the first time, that you are working 
on sound principles ; and see your pupils grow 
and take form under your molding touch, and 
rejoice in the sight ! 
Your pupils come to you with the reputa- 



1 6 The Coming School. 

tion of knowing certain principles. You find 
that, while they can recite very glibly the various 
statements they have been taught, and, perhaps, 
make a few mechanical applications, the result 
of special drill, the principles themselves have 
never found lodgment in their consciousness. If 
you are conscientious (and sanguine) you set 
about making these principles a part of your 
pupil's mental property, in order to have a more 
than nominal foundation of the "known" upon 
which to lay your bricks for the " unknown." A 
few, whose natural gift it is to readily see causes 
and correlations, or whose more intelligent home 
training has developed that faculty, follow you 
with brightening eyes, encourage you with orig- 
inal statements of what you have led them to 
perceive, give every promise of some day being 
ready for the grade work. The rest, who have 
from the lowest class up listened to statements, 
and conned them entirely without realization of 
the laws or facts they embody, whose habit of 
slavishly following words and never looking for 
meanings is almost hopelessly confirmed, con- 
tinue in the course they have been launched 
upon, follow your words with dull, obedient 
eyes, repeat them with obedient lips, if permitted 
to do so, and if not, say nothing, because they 
see nothing. Perhaps if you could go on with 
this patient work during the entire term, you 
might arouse some of these manufactured dul- 
lards to the discovery that there is a mental 



The Coming School. 17 

vision as well as a physical. But you have al- 
ready spent some time in a vain attempt to atone 
to them for past wrongs ; you must hasten now 
to catch up with your grade. You have treated 
memory as a string to be threaded with beads of 
knowledge by means of the needle, perception, 
instead of as a bag, to be filled with facts by 
the shovelful. You must shovel away, now, 
with might and main, to make up for lost time ; 
and fortunate are you if your educational aside 
cost you not dear in spite of every effort. You 
have disturbed the dull tribe's habit of conning, 
and it takes more time to re-establish that. 
Your bright ones have learned to ask for whys 
and wherefores, and an occasional hint to them 
suffices to keep them passably intelligent, but 
the body of your class will pretty surely fall 
below the mark. The contrast forces itself 
upon the mind of the examiner, who makes the 
mental comment : " There are some bright chil- 
dren in this class. Such pupils get on in spite 
of a poor teacher." You resolve, in bitterness 
of spirit, to commence the shoveling process on 
the first day of the new term ; but when your 
next class comes to you, you yield once more to 
the old, sweet temptation. And thus you are 
kept continually on the flutter between duty, 
which bids you adapt your teaching to your 
pupils, and interest, which urges you to win 
golden laurels by squeezing a quart of knowl- 
edge into a pint bottle. Do you think that in- 



1 8 The Coming School. 

adequate early culture has anything to do with 
the trouble ? 

These questions suggest a change that must 
and will come over our school system. Heaven 
grant that its completion may be recorded among 
the triumphs of the nineteenth century. The 
educational edifice is at present standing bot- 
tom-side up. The weakest stones are in the 
foundation, out of sight, and to prevent the 
crumbling of the building, the most strenuous 
endeavors are made to support the superstruc- 
ture by artificial means. In other words, teach- 
ers who do not know how to teach are placed in 
primary classes, and to make up for their bad 
work, teachers who could and would teach well 
if permitted to do so, are obliged to cram in- 
stead. The soil not being properly prepared, 
the tree will not bear apples, and it becomes 
necessary to hang sham apples upon it. The 
appearance is good, and the public applauds; 
but when the fruit goes to market its fraudulency 
is soon discovered. 

To hasten the change so much needed, teach- 
ers should educate public opinion and besiege 
trustees with the difficulties of grafting good 
teaching upon bad. A girl immediately after 
graduation is more competent to take charge of 
a grammar class than to apprehend and lead the 
crude thoughts of a little child. "In the green- 
ness of my early teaching experience," says Dr. 
Edgar D. Shimer, " I dare not think of the mis- 



The Coming School. 19 

chief I did through my lack of.knowledge of the 
little child and my consequent lack of sympathy 
for him. There was something plain to the 
vision. / saw — why should not the child ? Now, 
after many years of psychological study, I know 
that the little child does not see as I do." The 
learning department for teachers should be 
where the first steps have long been taken, the 
intellectual machinery set in full operation, the 
habits of study well established. 

With this reform will come others. The 
higher ideal of education implied in such a 
change and the higher trust in teachers will sug- 
gest and necessitate a revolution in examinations. 
Such talk as the following will become obsolete: 

Examinations a Barrier. — Immediate results do not 
measure a true teacher's work, and yet examinations 
are based upon immediate results. To illustrate with two 
classes that are progressing, under the writer's observation, 
the one toward perfect humanity, the other toward exami- 
nation day. We will call them respectively class A and 
class B. 

Class A has proceeded leisurely through a part of the 
reading book, gathering much general infoimation by the 
way, gaining half unconsciously many a moral lesson, read- 
ing bright dialogues from the board, reading each new lesson 
only once, but approaching it with such thorough prepara- 
tion that the first reading was well-nigh perfect. Class B 
has taken each lesson in turn, tumbled into it, floundered 
about in it, struggled with its crowding difficulties, and read 
and re-read until the sentences are better memorized than 
" Now I lay me." Little or no supplementary reading has 
been done, but they have finished the reader. 

Class A has acquired so much general intelligence, so 



20 The Comitig School. 

much readiness in discussing a new subject, and so much 
power in phonics, that, with a little hurrying, they could 
soon finish the reader quite intelligently. They read in 
their own natural tones, know no lesson by heart, and 
should a sentence contain a surprise for them, they might 
perchance stumble if required to read it aloud without a 
preparatory glance through it. Class B is well trained in 
imitation, the pupils read with " perfect expression," copied 
from the teacher's voice, and it is impossible to "catch" 
them with any sentence between the covers of the reader. 

The examiner steps in, discovers considerable "natural 
brightness " in class A, thinks that, with energetic teaching, 
these clever children might have completed the reader, and 
marks the teacher Fair. Then he examines Class B, ex- 
presses delight, and marks the teacher Excellent. 

The teacher of Class A has " carefully prepared every 
lesson," criticised her own work from day to day, tried to 
keep it true to the philosophy of teaching, looked far ahead 
into the children's future lives. The teacher of class B has 
taken an easier plan, drilled for examination, spent her even- 
ings in social gayety, and laughed at the earnest exhortations 
of humanitarian teachers. 

When this change is made, too, a general ad- 
vance in teaching skill will result. Routine 
teachers will awake to a suspicion that education 
is to be viewed from the standpoint of mind, not 
from that of knowledge. Many of our schools 
are making the mistake that a head gardener 
would make if he were to say to his laborers, 
" Make the tree take into its system such and 
such chemicals," instead of humbly asking the 
tree, " What chemicals do you need to make you 
grow beautiful and perfect ? " 

There will no longer be occasion for such 



The Coming School. 21 

commentaries as the following, taken from one 
of our educational papers: 

Slaves that Enslave. —How many now are still drill- 
ing away at " This is a real cat, this is a picture of a cat, 
and this is the word cat ! " Because the pioneers of the 
word method told them to do it years ago, they think they 
mtist do it and keep on doing it until a superseding authority 
tells them to do something else ! Teachers, free yourselves! 
Scan the methods laid before you and learn to distinguish 
between the kernel and the shell, or you will inevitably 
throw the wrong thing away. At this moment you are as- 
siduously cramming shells down the throats of your little 
charges. No wonder they make poor growth. There is 
excuse for a young girl, gaining her first experience in 
class-room work, for blindly following authority. She is 
new to her work, and it is new to her. Everything is a 
maze to her, and the more she tries to look independently 
on the nature and treatment of the mind, the more the 
maze deepens — at first. She is not quite sure za/iy she does 
any of the many strange things she is required to do. She 
must do them as best she can, and learn the why or the why 
not as she goes along. But for a teacher who has been long 
at the work, who has had years of opportunity to pass judg- 
ment upon her own methods and those of others, and who 
still wastes the time and stultifies the mentality of her 
pupils by requiring them to tell over and over again a fact 
either known since babyhood or not known at all, there is 
no excuse — except that, perhaps, her own mental growth 
has been dwarfed by a similar maltreatment. Do not 
make the little ones of the present day victims in turn. 
The child as surely distinguishes between a living animal, 
an inanimate model of one, a picture and a word, as you 
do yourself. Your whole duty in the matter is to see that 
he acquires the power to express that distinction if he has 
not already gained it. Now, don't exclaim, " Why, cer- 
tainly ! I never thought of that before ! That is very 
true ! " and rest under the impression that no more dis- 



22 The Coming School. 

coveries are to be made. There is not a book or a method 
placed before you that will not bear criticism. Wake up ! 

There will be need for few such confessions as 
the following, from a teacher who had to " learn 
to do by doing": 

"In my own class I have a little girl whose eagerness to 
solve her daily problems resulted in brain fever. A bright 
little thing she was, too young for the use of books, but 
the victim of a hot-bed culture to which I must myself plead 
guilty. I was proud of her intense alertness. If occasion 
had occurred I should, perhaps, have boasted of it. What- 
ever the problem, whether one in number, one in phonics, 
one in expression, or one in general thought, she sat, 
straining forward, her chin projecting, her eyes looking 
hungry for notice, hoping I would call upon her. The at- 
titude still clings to her, but since her illness the eyes are 
dull and absent. Her faculty of attention is very seriously 
impaired. I can not look at her without the most grievous 
self-reproach. I know that the weakened power will regain 
its strength, and I am helping the little brain to rest by 
giving it light amusement while the class are doing their 
hardest work, and by sending the child out for a walk in 
the playground whenever I think she needs it. And still 
I dare not claim that no permanent injury is done. A 
child's mental growth can not receive so serious a check 
without enduring consequences. I have another little girl 
at present, as eager to answer as she was and more delicate 
of constitution. I watch her very carefully. I give her 
the first question, after which her eagerness abates some- 
what. Then, if I see that her mind still strains after solu- 
tions that come a little too hard for her, I send her out into 
the air and away from the heated intellectual atmosphere." 
***** 

i. Education is a systematic assisting of 
growth. Growth may be downward, upward, 



The Coming School. 23 

lateral or oblique. It proceeds in obedience to 
certain laws. 

2. Anything that grows can be educated by 
merely supplying more favorable conditions. 
The simpler the organism the less education 
can do for it. The more complex the organism 
the more education can do for it, because of the 
greater distance between worst and best condi- 
tions. The education of a plant demands a 
study of its structure, foods, and climatic needs. 
The education of a brute demands all this ; and 
in addition, that of voluntary motion and a 
limited mind development. The education of 
a human being demands all these, almost in- 
finitely amplified, and in addition, that of the 
moral and spiritual nature and its immaterial 
foods. 

3. Education, as an auxiliary of growth, should 
be beside it everywhere, seeking out its most 
hidden avenues and accompanying it from the 
central germ in all directions. 

4. Not all the laws and methods of growth 
are known. Not all the means by which growth 
may be assisted are known. Artificial means 
have been invented, causing partial and dis- 
torted growth and partial atrophy. 

5. As education . turns its back upon the in- 
vention of substitutes, and its face toward the 
discovery of natural means of assisting growth, 
it makes progress. 

" But," says Formalism, " you ask us to dis~ 



24 The Coming School. 

cover, and in order to do that we must clear the 
ground." 

" Then," says Science, " clear the ground, and 
I will help you to discover. Do you see what 
the mother does with her young babe ? She is 
not a normal graduate, but what an inspired 
teacher ! Why ? Because love is her motive 
and nature her guide. She watches the child. 
If he tries to toss his baby fists, she removes all 
obstructions and lets him do so. If he wants 
to kick with his little feet, she provides them the 
same freedom. If he wants to sit up she lifts 
him to that posture and gives him the gentle 
support necessary to second his own effort. If 
he turns his head toward the light she holds him 
so that he can look unrestrainedly at the object 
that has caught his attention. If he wants to 
encircle her finger in his weak clasp she surren- 
ders it to him. He is not spoiled, as yet, and 
has no pettish, artificial wants. If he sees some- 
thing across the room and stretches toward it, 
she takes him to it and lets him exercise his 
young powers of examination. If he cries, she 
knows there is something wrong, and investi- 
gates. How she watches from day to day to see 
that he is "all there." What an anguished dis- 
covery that was for John Halifax and wife, when 
they found little Muriel could not see ! How 
each infantile power, as it comes into visible ac- 
tivity, fills the parental heart with joy and pride. 
The first sneeze, the first time he " notices " any 



The Coming School. 25 

object or listens to any sound, the first cooing 
attempt at vocal communication, the first laugh, 
the first hug — what ecstasies they occasion in the 
loving educators around him ! As for the first 
tooth, the first word, the first step — human lan- 
guage can not adequately state their importance ! 
How tenderly this unfolding of the human bud 
is watched, and with what anxious care are the 
most favorable conditions secured for it ! This 
is the education provided by nature. How does 
it compare with that of art during the years that 
follow ? " 

" The purpose," says Formalism, " of the art 
that takes him in training at the school door is 
different. It is to fit him for an artificial life — 
a life to which our civilization gives him no 
alternative." 

" Without stopping," says Science, " to ask or 
answer the question, Have we a right to distort 
the child to make him fit the mold our civiliza- 
tion has prepared for him, let us, for the mo- 
ment, admit that the art of calculation will be in 
future life more useful to him than the gift of 
poetry, that we must give him an over-culture in 
some lines of activity : what, even then, can we 
gain from the lesson of the lap and cradle ? 
How were all those faculties that came to light 
under the mother's care trained ? " 

"By exercise." 

" How must all faculties yet untried be 
trained ? " 



26 The Coming School. 

" By exercise." 

" Should exercise be proportioned to the 
present strength of a faculty ? " 

" Yes." 

" Can the present strength at any given time 
be predetermined ? " 

"No." 

" What is the only safeguard against over- 
straining the faculties ? " 

" Intelligent watchfulness." 

" Who alone can apply this safeguard ? " 

" The teacher." 

" Is there more danger of overstraining the 
faculties during their early development, or when 
they have been long at work ? " 

" During their early development." 

" At what age are the greatest number of phy- 
sical and mental powers undergoing early devel- 
opment?" 

" Probably at six." 

" Does an individual faculty ever work alone?" 

" Probably not." 

" Will it be an economy of effort if we can 
provide suitable exercise for several faculties at 
once ?" 

" Yes, if it is not done by straining any 
one. " 

" Ha ! you are growing cautious. Well, sup- 
pose you could teach percentage from an apple, 
taking fifty per cent, by weight, guessing at 
twenty-five per cent., calculating what per cent. 



The Coming School. 27 

the length of the stem is of the diameter of the 
apple, what per cent, the diameter is of the cir- 
cumference, what per cent, the apples on an 
imaginary branch were of the apples on the 
whole imaginary tree, etc. Would there be any 
advantage in that ? " 

" The examination of the apple would result 
in a clearer concept, some point, as the color of 
unripe seeds, for instance, being noticed, perhaps 
that was not observed before. The picture 
power would be exercised on the imaginary tree, 
and the judgment in estimating twenty-five per 
cent, of the apple and the number of apples on 
branch and tree. Memory of past observations, 
particularly in number, would be strengthened, 
as in the ordinary mode of teaching percentage. 
But time would be lost ? " 

" Are you sure that time would be lost ? 
Would not a little of this practice upon some- 
thing real make a more lasting impression than 
a good deal of practice in taking the per cents, 
of nothing ? " 

" Perhaps so." 

" And if the group around the apple avoid 
jostling one another, or if the taller stand aside 
to let the smaller see the cutting, is there more 
ethical culture in this than in the usual drill in 
percentage, the incentive in which is to outstrip 
and outshine one's neighbors ? " 

" But that is only good-natured competition, 
like that of a game." 



28 The Coming School. 

" Not always. Besides, the kindergarten 
games are all cooperative." 

" Competition is one of the laws of life." 

" It is one of the laws of evolution in organic 
life, but it is death to moral life. Some human 
beings are learning to live by cooperation. 
Should the schools encourage this aim ? " 

" It would be a fine thing if it could become 
general." 

" Can it become general in the present gene- 
ration ? " 

" No, indeed ! " 

" Why not ? " 

" Because the present generation has been 
trained in selfishness and dishonesty." 

" And shall the next generation receive the 
same training ? " 

" Not to any avoidable extent, of course." 

" Where shall we begin to teach unselfish, 
ness ? " 

" The younger the child the better." 

" Where shall we begin to teach attentive- 
ness ?" 

" Begin with the little child." 

" Where shall we begin to teach a healthy car- 
riage of the body, and proper attention to phys- 
ical needs ? " 

" In early childhood." 

" Should these beginnings be made gently, 
carefully, watchfully, scientifically?" 

" Beyond a doubt." 



The Coming School. 29 

" Whom shall we employ to do this work ? " 

" Persons well equipped and well motived." 

" Is any training necessary to such teachers ? " 

"Yes." 

" Any general culture ? " 

" Yes." 

" What kind of culture ? " 

" A knowledge of the world, past and present, 
a good deal of moral stamina, a highly cultivated 
patience, a knowledge of evolution and of human 
psychology, a — " 

" Yes, yes, that makes a very fair start. How 
would you direct these people ? " 

" Only with an occasional suggestion, such as 
an equal, or even an inferior might give, stand- 
ing off and viewing the work from a distance." 

" O-oh ! How do you think these teachers 
will go to work ? " 

" They will study the child and give him what 
he needs." 

" Will the thought of his future place in civil- 
ization affect them ? " 

" Not much in the choice of material. Some- 
what in the choice of exercises on that mate- 
rial." 

" If the aim is the development of power, 
what will most frequently be the material ? " 

" The nearest object." 

" What will they teach from the nearest ob- 
ject ? " 

" To observe, to think, to tell, to act, to read. 



30 The Coming School. 

to write, to cipher, to choose between good and 
bad, between true and false, between beauty and 
ugliness — " 

" Have I helped you to discover anything ? 
Surely you will set these people to work to-mor- 
row ! Why does your face fall ? You look as 
though you were coming out of a dream." 

" I can not give the little children my best 
teachers." 

"Why not?" 

" They are busy." 

" What are they doing ? " 

" Patching up for graduation." 

" Who gave them that work ? " 

" I did." 

" Why ? " 

" Because, when I divided up the subjects I 
thought it necessary to put the heaviest ramrods 
where the biggest lumps had to be adminis- 
tered." 

" Can you not change now ? " 

" Oh, no ! Those pupils must graduate!' 



PART I.— PRIMARY EDUCATION. 

" OBJECTS." 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NEW EDUCATION. 

" The New Education " is a mystical phrase 
about which many are inquiring both in and out 
of school circles. It has almost as many mean- 
ings as there are voices that speak it. With most 
it means some vague and undeveloped system of 
object teaching that is to become general as fast 
as the intelligence and skill of teachers advance 
to meet its requirements. With others it means 
a system of object teaching already fully devel- 
oped in their own practice and not capable of 
much more growth. With all it means more or 
less of industrial training, more or less of model- 
ing, making, painting, etc. The writer will at- 
tempt to give the phrase a meaning at the same 
time very definite and very suggestive of expan- 
sion. The New Education means, for the most 
indefatigable truthseekers among the teaching 
ranks, a continual exercising of the child's facul- 

3i 



32 The Coming School. 

ties upon the objects of nature. It proceeds 
upon the assumption that " the child is a born 
naturalist." It gives him leaves to compare and 
to dissect. (The timorous, who have an anx- 
ious thought fixed upon map drawing", may see, 
if they will, the beginnings of map drawing in 
the study of the leaf.) It leads him to talk and 
write about the leaves, to mold and paint and 
draw the leaves. It gives him flowers to inves- 
tigate. It answers no questions that the child's 
own observing powers can answer for him, but 
answers all others freely and truly, whatever they 
may be ; and the great truths of nature trickle 
into the child's mind and are assimilated by his 
mental constitution just as bread and milk are 
by his physical organism. They feed the moral 
nature with the intellectual, for there is nothing 
that can so stir and strengthen the moral sense 
as to observe the beauty and infallibility of na- 
ture's laws. The New Education places whole 
plants before the child. The adaptation of parts 
to purposes, the conditions of healthy growth, 
even practice in farming, gardening, etc., may 
come to the pupil in the course of his school life. 
And all the while the arts of expression are re- 
ceiving the highest possible cultivation. Speech 
and written composition progress " under the 
white heat of thought," there is little trouble 
with spelling, and the growing vocabulary in- 
cludes all the terms that the most varied discus- 
sion can demand. Color and form are learned 



The Coming School. 33 

from the sources to which artists go. Even 
number, which, like color and form, is " but an 
element in thought," is taught incidentally. One 
leaf has so many more points than another. A 
flower of one kind has petals enough for so many 
of another. From a stem bearing so many thorns 
we can take off three so many times. If from a 
plant having seven blossoms we take three for 
study, four will remain, etc. The New Educa- 
tion already opens up a doubt whether in prim- 
ary teaching the subject of number need be sep- 
arately treated (number includes size ; one ob- 
ject is so many times as long, as broad, as thick, 
as another; every object is so many lines, inches, 
feet, miles, etc., in dimensions). We can not 
study any visible object without applying the 
elements of form, color, and number. The New 
Education subjects animal organisms to the 
same experiencial study. It also presents min- 
erals. It incites observation of the weather, 
changes of season, etc. I wish to answer in ad- 
vance all anxious querists about dollars and 
cents. Our currency is a part of the great social 
organism. A smaller social organism exists in 
the class room. In the study of that smaller 
social organism which is a proper subject for the 
New Education to treat, may be gathered all of 
social and political principle, all of mercantile 
form and practice. Here is a natural system 
that need not end with the kindergarten, but 
that may be made to do the child the same jus- 



34 The Coming School. 

tice throughout the school course. It is justice 
that is called for. Every child that is born into 
this world has an indisputable right to have his 
natural needs satisfied. The education of the 
past has made many blind attempts at this work 
of satisfying childhood's needs, and here and 
there some great soul has pierced the darkness 
and let in a flood of light too dazzling for the 
unaccustomed eyes of his fellow-teachers. But 
eyes are stronger now, and love must grow with 
every ray of light let in. The more teachers re- 
alize how much the children of the past have 
been injured, the more they will yearn over the 
children of the present. 

Not less in value than lessons in nature are 
lessons on common objects, — especially in the 
lower classes. The more children can be led to 
see in their toys, in their surroundings at home, 
in the ordinary things of life, the more their lives 
will be enriched and their powers for future en- 
joyment and usefulness enhanced. 

Col. Parker says : " All our thinking depends 
upon clear concepts." The truth of this can be 
established by asking of each of the intellectual 
faculties what it operates upon. They all oper- 
ate, directly or indirectly, upon concepts, or 
mental pictures of objects. Since the concept 
is the source of all thought, it becomes the cen- 
ter of intellectual education ; and with intellec- 
tual education goes hand in hand the training of 
the tastes, the emotions, the morals, the will. 



The Coming School. 



35 



The concept, then, is the center of all education, 
if this view is correct ; and it becomes a vital 
question : Of what is the concept made ? 

Perception. 

Conception. 

Memory. 

Imagination. 

Analysis. 

Comparison. 

Judgment. 

Emotions. 

Choice. 

Reason. 

Construction. 





f Color. 


Sight.— 


' J Form. 
1 Number. 




\ Texture. 


Touch. — 


Tempera. 




ture. 




Hardness. 




Etc., etc. 


Hearing. — 


Sound. 


Taste.— 


Taste. 


Smell.— 


Smell. 



Concept. - 



In the above scheme an attempt is made to 
show of what elements our concepts are com- 
posed, by what avenues those elements from the 
external world reach the mind, and the peda- 
gogical value of the concept, both while forming 
and when formed. A concept or mental picture 
of any object is clearly made of the sense-ele- 
ments, color, form, number, etc. These sense- 
elements as clearly come into human conscious- 
ness by the several gates of sense — the first four 
named through sight ; an indefinite number, 
beginning v/ith form, through touch ; elements 
of sound through hearing, etc. As regards the 
supremacy of the concept in mental action, I 
venture the following statements, subject, of 
course, to question and disproof, beginning at 



36 Thi Coming School. 

the top of the column to the right : We perceive 
nothing but concepts, properties of concepts, or 
relations of concepts ; we conceive of nothing but 
concepts, their relations, and the causes and ef- 
fects of those relations ; we remember nothing 
but concepts, their properties and relations, and 
the causes and effects of those relations ; we 
imagine nothing but concepts in old or new re- 
lations ; we compare nothing but concepts, their 
properties and relations ; we judge of and be- 
tween nothing but concepts, their properties and 
relations ; our emotions are excited by concepts 
(even in the case of a burned finger, while the 
sense of pain locates itself in the injured mem- 
ber, the emotion, if there is any, say of resent- 
ment, refers to the object that caused the burn); 
we choose between objects or relations of objects ; 
we reason about concepts, their properties and 
relations, and the causes and effects of those re- 
lations ; we construct with the hands objects or 
combinations of objects after some concept pat- 
tern. If there are mental or moral powers or 
faculties not enumerated, it seems safe to assume 
that they exercise themselves on concepts alone. 
The concept, then, becomes the center of edu- 
cational effort, since it is the invariable result of 
sense action and the unvarying basis of mental 
action. 

The author enjoyed the privilege of listening, 
in July, 1887, to Col. Parker's lectures on 
pyschology. He talked of concepts, concepts, 



The Coming School. 37 

concepts — nothing but concepts. I had an un- 
easy feeling that something was being left out, 
and kept asking myself, " Is the study of mind, 
then, so simple ? Are the contents of the mind 
to be classified only as concepts and other con- 
cepts ? Is there nothing that passes through 
my consciousness but concepts ? " At last I 
thought of applying the parts of speech as a 
test. Since for all our thoughts we have words, 
and since all our words are classified as parts of 
speech, I would find out whether there were 
other things than concepts, by seeing if there 
were words for other things than concepts. So 
I commenced : 

The article limits (or ////limits) the concept. 

The adjective tells of some element in the 
concept. 

The noun names the concept. 

The pronoun recalls a concept previously 
made. 

The verb shows the concept in action or at 
rest. 

The adverb shows the concept in a particular 
kind of action or rest. 

The preposition tells the relation of two or 
more concepts that are in the mind at the same 
time. 

The conjunction connects or disconnects con- 
cepts co-existent in the mind. 

The interjection— ha ! we have got to the end 
of concepts at last. 



38 The Coming School. 

But no ! The interjection tells how the Ego 
receives the concept when it comes upon him 
suddenly. 

I use the word concept in the restricted sense, 
Individual Concept. I do not mean the chain of 
flitting fancies comprised in a general notion. 
The difference is this : Horse — A horse. If I 
ask you to think horse you think of all kinds of 
horses that you have seen or read about. The 
mental result is an exact counterpart of a 
composite photograph. It is utterly devoid of 
definiteness and individuality. Such a concept 
is of little pedagogical value, even at the age of 
generalization, treated in Part II. It is the 
individual concept, clearly defined in all its parts 
and attributes, that is the fruit and true test of 
healthy sense-action and must be the basis of 
vigorous mental action. 



CHAPTER II. 

POSSIBILITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL OBJECT. 

In the effort to establish a clear concept, all 
the studies of the curriculum may be called to 
assist. 

EXAMPLE. 

I have before me a box. 
1. By means of this box I can train the senses 
of sight, touch, and hearing. 



The Coming School. 39 

2. I can teach from it color, form, number, 
and sound. 

3. I can exercise upon it the faculties of per- 
ception, conception, memory, recollection, analy- 
sis, comparison, judgment, imagination, con- 
struction, reason, choice, and imitation, and the 
emotions of wonder, admiration, and pity. 

4. I can teach from it reading, writing, arith- 
metic (whatever the grade), geography, history, 
government, finance, grammar, composition, 
drawing, painting, and modeling. 

5. If I do all this I shall instill habits of intelli- 
gent attention, consecutive thought, and com- 
prehensive study. 

The box is a jewel-case, covered with speci- 
mens of spar, ore, and other minerals from the 
Western mines, and lined with blue satin. 

Plan. 

1 and 2. What color is this stone ? This ? 
How many colors do you see in this specimen ? 
Find a green stone. One that is reddish-brown. 
One that is milky white. One that is transpar- 
ent and almost colorless. 

What shape is the top of the box ? The ends ? 
The back and front ? The faces of this stone ? 
Find a face that is square. One that is oblong. 
Look for a rhombus. A circle. Find a smooth 
surface. A rough surface. A plane surface. 
A rounded surface. A vertical line. A hori- 
zontal line. An oblique line. Two parallel 



40 



The Coming School. 



lines. Two lines at right angles. Two that 
form an acute angle. An obtuse angle. Two 
surfaces that meet at right angles. 

I will strike the different stones and the satin 
lining with my pencil. Which stone gives the 
sharpest sound ? The dullest ? Do any ring ? 

Close your eyes and touch the stones ? Do 
you recognize any of them ? Do you remember 
the color of the specimen you are touching now ? 
Which stones have the sharpest corners ? The 
smoothest faces ? Count the edges of this one. 
The corners. The faces. Test the stones with 
your thumb-nail— can you indent any of them ? 
If there is anything soft about the box find it 
with your eyes still closed. Feel the weight of 
the box. 

How many inches long do you think the box 
is? Wide? Deep? Ascertain these dimen- 
sions exactly by measurement. How thick are 
the sides? The lid ? Pierce the cushions with 
a pin and measure the depth. How much satin 
lining did the box require ? How many speci- 
mens are on the outside ? How many mines do 
they represent ? (Consult key for this.) That 
is an average of how many to a mine ? Weigh 
the box. How much would a dozen of them 
weigh ? A gross ? The box cost $1.50, what 
per cent, was that of the ten dollars that I had 
with me at the time of purchasing ? What per 
cent, of the weight of the box would balance a 
two-ounce weight ? How many inches of cord 



The Coming School. 41 

would it take to reach around the box this way? 
This way ? This way ? Allowing one inch lap 
on all sides, how large a piece of paper would it 
require for a wrapper ? Give square contents of 
wrapper. Of one of the faces of the box. Sug- 
gest an item from the day-book of the dealer 
who sold me this box. This same dealer is a 
man not much afraid of loss by fire, because his 
stock is not what ? " Inflammable." The risk 
is light. His stock amounts to about $2,500. 
Ask and answer a question regarding his insur- 
ance. 

3. Most of the mental faculties have already 
received training. Comparison and choice : 
Compare the faces of the box. Which are long ? 
Short ? Broad ? Narrow ? Which stone is 
deepest in color ? Palest ? Prettiest ? Larg- 
est ? Smallest? How many more specimens 
are on the left end than on the right end of the 
box ? 

The imagination, or image-making power : 
Close your eyes and take the box in your hand. 
Locate the pretty green stone. The satin spar. 
The iron pyrites. The lead ore. If you have 
seen a similar box, recall its appearance, and tell 
how it differs from this. Suggest a prettier 
arrangement of the specimens. 

Construction and manual training : You have 
the dimensions of the box. Make at home a stiff 
paper case or a muslin bag that will exactly fit it. 

Imitation : Show me with your mouth, how 



42 The Coming School. 

the box can open and shut. Show me how the 
men in the mines work with their spades. With 
their pick-axes. With their crow-bars. 

Wonder and admiration : Direct attention to 
the wonderful treasures of earth that are waiting 
to be mined ; to the wonderful ingenuity of man 
that has made the roads to reach the mountains, 
the tools to mine them, and the beautiful articles 
from the mining products ; to the beauties of 
the roughest stones, when polished ; to the 
grand convulsions of nature by which ores and 
precious stones have been left within the reach 
of man ; to the wonderful determination of man 
in sacrificing comfort, health, even life in his 
endeavors to get at earth's hidden treasures ; 
etc., etc., etc. 

Pity : Tell of the hardships of miners ; their 
disappointments ; their low wages and suffering 
families ; the extremes of climate they endure, 
and the various accidents that befall them in the 
mines. 

4. Reading : In the higher grades suitable 
reading may be selected from any available 
source. It should treat of the most prominent 
feature in the discussion of the object. In this 
case mining adventures or scientific information 
on rocks would be appropriate. In the lowest 
class an improvised lesson on the board may 
teach the new words, box, face, corner, stone, 
or other selected words. 

Writing, grammar, and composition : a writ- 



The Coming School. 43 

ten description of the box may be made an ex- 
cellent exercise in all of these. An anecdote, 
remembered or composed, will do as well. 

Arithmetic has already been taught. 

Drawing — draw the box. 

Painting — paint the box. 

Modeling — reproducing it as nearly as 
possible in sand or clay ; or carve it at 
home in wax, chalk, or any other appropriate 
material. 

Geography : For little children, tell them to 
point west, and that the stones come from some 
very high hills away over there ; that men go 
and dig deep mines in those great mountains to 
find pretty and valuable things, like gold, silver, 
and precious stones ; that they suffer great cold 
among those mountains, and that sometimes the 
snow comes sliding down the mountain-sides in 
great masses, carrying the homes of the miners 
with it, and sometimes burying them so deeply 
that they die for want of air before they can be 
dug out of the snow ; that every time we look 
at the setting sun we are looking toward those 
mountains ; that the wooden part of the box 
comes from trees that grow on the slopes of 
those same mountains. 

History : Tell of the Indians who still inhabit 
the Western valleys and who once owned our 
entire country ; how they live in tribes, each 
tribe composed of a good many families and led 
by a chief ; how some of the tribes are fierce, 



44 The Coming School. 

and others gentle ; how a gentle tribe welcomed 
the first white men, etc., etc. 

Government : Compare the Indian chief with 
the rulers of civilized nations. Lead older 
scholars to collect information on comparative 
government ; tell the younger ones how the 
Indian chief inherits his sway, and that the same 
is true of kings, but not of our President ; treat 
the subject as fully as seems profitable and no 
more so ; tell how the box could never have come 
so far in safety, but for the laws and officers of 
the government that preserve property from 
robbers, etc. 

Finance : Tell of the wampum of the Indians ; 
how it took the place of early barter ; how much 
better our currency is, carrying with it in every 
piece an intrinsic or representative value ; how 
awkward it would have been without the cur- 
rency, if I had wanted the box and had possessed 
nothing that I would willingly exchange for it 
or the dealer willingly accept in exchange. 

It will be seen that the box could be made to 
furnish as many days' study as could be desired. 
It may be that it could be made the center of a 
complete and liberal education. It may be that 
to strain its power in that direction would be to 
make an injurious hobby out of a wise device. 
It may be that older students could with profit 
spend more time on the study of the box than 
should be devoted to it with younger students. 

However these questions may be decided, the 



The Coming School. 45 

principle of solidarity in knowledge remains. 
Has it any value ? Will knowledge thus grouped 
by family ties, so to speak, take a firmer place 
in the mind than knowledge drilled in formally 
and without connections ? Is there any impor- 
tance to be attached to the building of a clear 
concept into the mind ? Will the mind thus 
guided acquire a habit of all-sided examination ? 
Even young children will not tire of one object 
in a day if the presentation is varied. Place a 
six-months-old baby in his high chair and put 
before him, but just out of his reach, a silver call- 
bell. He will try to grasp it. Failing in this, 
he will look at it and talk to it in a language of 
his own for a given length of time. He is gath- 
ering in impressions of color and form through 
his eye. His mentality is feeding, and the pro- 
cess is as pleasurable as is that of feeding the 
body. By and by his eyes have gathered in ail 
that his nature wants in that line. He wearies 
of looking, ceases his expressions of pleasure at 
the presence of so bright an object, turns away 
from it, and wants you to " take " him. Instead 
of taking him, put the bell within his reach. It 
has an entirely new interest for him now, because 
he can study its properties with new powers. 
He clutches it, slaps it, rubs his baby hand and 
his baby tongue over the smooth and shining- 
surface, gathers in impressions of form, temper- 
ature, and hardness through the sense of touch. 
When he has had enough of this, he throws the 



46 The Coming School. 

bell on the floor and again clamors to be 
"taken." Do not take him, but give him 
back the bell and show him how to. ring it. 
Here is a new delight, a new kind of mental 
food, a new means of growth, and the bell is a 
new object to him. 

The child of seven, when compared with the 
baby, has a trained mind, or at least, if I may 
be allowed the expression, a trained mental phy- 
sique. By this I mean that his senses have re- 
ceived much culture, whether systematic or acci- 
dental ; that the brain centers have become 
responsive to many outer influences that did not 
consciously affect the baby's brain ; and that 
the memory has recorded an immense amount 
of fact. He can study the bell more minutely 
than the baby can, and, with equal pleasure, 
spend a much longer time with it. 

The adult, with his powers of generalization, 
etc., can extend his study so as to practically fill 
the remainder of his life with one subject, as 
Darwin did — as most earnest workers do. 

The following is an example from a series of 
lessons actually given in a class of children of 
from five to eight years of age, under all the 
restrictions of a course of study and a " pro- 
gramme " fixed by authority. 

In this first case, the middle window was 
made the object of a whole morning's study. 
The aim of the teacher was, first, faculty and 
sense culture ; second, compliance with grade 



The Coming School. 47 

book ; third, to establish closer relations between 
the children and their environment : 

Number. How many windows have we ? Our 
room and the next have how many together ? 
How many sashes has each window? How 
many have all three ? How many panes of glass 
has each sash ? How many panes has a whole 
window ? What is one-half of that number ? 
How wide do you think the panes of glass are? 
Joe may measure one. Is it enough to measure 
one? Why? How long are the panes ? Each 
tell what you think, and then we will measure. 
How wide is the whole window ? How high ? 
How can we find out the height ? I think, if I 
had a big boy here, he could tell me how to find 
out without a ladder ; but never mind. You 
may write J of 12 = 6. 

Penmanship. Movement exercises in air and on 
waste paper. Special instruction on /, r, e and 
tree. 

Drawing. Show me the upper left corner of 
your slates. Draw there a vertical line, one 
inch long. Hold the slate up, so that the line 
really is vertical. Lay it down again. From 
the top of your vertical line draw, to the right, a 
horizontal line nearly as long as the vertical 
line. Draw one like it from the bottom of the 
vertical toward the right. Find the top hori- 
zontal line. Find the right end of it. From 
there, draw a vertical line, downward, until it 



48 The Coming School. 

touches the other horizontal line. See if all the 
corners are square. What have you ? Draw 
another oblong beside it, almost touching it on 
the right. Be careful to make it the same size 
as the first. Draw another to the right of that. 
What have you now ? Draw another row of 
three oblongs beneath those, and almost touch- 
ing them. Draw another row of three oblongs 
below these, but not quite so near. Another 
row below the last, and very close. What have 
you ? Draw a frame around them all, like the 
window-frame. 

Observation. I am thinking of something that 
has two hands and the roundest face you ever 
saw. Though it is not alive it is always point- 
ing, and tells you something every time you look 
at it. Sometimes it does not tell the truth, but 
that is when we don't manage it right. When 
the room is very still we can hear it talking. As 
soon as it stops talking its hands stand still. 
W T hile it talks its hands go around and around. 
And yet it always holds its hands to its face, 
whether it talks or not. (This is to take the 
children's minds temporarily off of the window. 
They answer by pointing to the clock.) 

Now I am thinking of something else. But 
for what I am thinking of we could not see the 
clock, because there would be no light in the 
room. It is made of wood and of something 
else that I can see through. It has two parts 
that slide up and down. These two parts hang 



The Coming School. 49 

by cords. It is a good thing that we can slide 
them up and down, because by that means we 
get all the fresh air we need. The whole thing 
is oblong in shape, and contains twelve smaller 
oblongs. It is through these smaller oblongs 
that I can see, and that the light comes in. We 
have three of these things, but I am thinking of 
the one in the middle. What are you all point- 
ing to the middle window for ? 

Pupils. Because you said it was a big oblong 
with little oblongs. Because you said you could 
see through it. Because you said the two parts 
hung on ropes. Because you said fresh air 
comes in that way, etc., etc. 

What do we call the big oblong ? The kittle 
oblongs ? The parts that slide ? What are the 
frame and sashes made of ? The cords ? The 
panes ? Why not take the panes out ? What 
can you see through them ? Can you see 
the glass ? Do you see the glass itself, or only 
the spots on it ? How, then, do you know that 
the glass is there ? 

Henry may tap on the glass with his slate 
pencil. With his lead pencil. With his finger- 
nails. With the fleshy part of his fingers. Again 
with each. Which makes the sharpest sound ? 
The softest ? Does a blind person know 
when any one is opening a window ? How ? 
Is the sound different from that of opening a 
door ? 

How does glass feel to the touch ? Hard or 



50 The Coming School. 

soft ? Cold or warm ? Rough or smooth ? Did 
you ever cut your finger with glass ? 

If you had a piece of glass and a piece of 
wood in your hand, which would you be most 
careful not to drop ? Why ? 

Reading. I see three birds in a tree. 

Now I see ten birds. 

Has the tree a nest in it ? 

No, the birds have no nest. 

Is the tree green ? 

No, the tree is not green. 

Can you see the tree and the birds ? 

The reading lesson had to treat of objects 
seen through the window, because the primer 
had to be taught and its vocabulary contained 
the names of those objects, and a day would 
have been " lost " had the words pane, glass, 
sash, etc., been taught instead. 

A reading or number lesson, given for itself 
alone and separate from some object of general 
study, will be an exception in the coming school. 
Number is an element in the consideration of 
any ot>ject, and should be treated in the time, 
place and manner decided by the drift of general 
instruction. 

Special form, color and language lessons, also, 
will be exceptional. It is a disintegration of 
knowledge to follow separate lines of study in 
these several factors in thought. It is like 
taking a cake apart and eating the flour dry, the 



The Coming School. 51 

eggs by themselves, the sugar alone, etc. It is 
not only more appetizing, but more conducive to 
good health to take these ingredients as they are 
combined in the cake. There is a complete 
analogy, here, between food and knowledge. 
That elementary knowledge that comes to us in 
some natural combination is most welcome and 
does us the most good. That elementary knowl- 
edge which is separate from its co-ordinates 
may benefit the mental system as a medicine or 
a tonic, but can not be regarded as a well-pre- 
pared food. 

Color lessons, form lessons, number lessons, 
are all incomplete object lessons, and may lead 
to the habit of forming incomplete concepts. 
The child's attention being riveted upon one 
attribute alone in the object or objects con- 
sidered, all other attributes combined make but 
a cloudy background for that one. The result 
must be somewhat like this : 

" The teacher showed us something red to- 
day. I don't remember what its shape was, how 
many corners it had, what it was made of, or 
what it was for, but only that it was red." 

" We studied oblongs to-day. They have four 
sides. We looked at a great many things long 
enough to see the lines, and then we looked at 
something else." 

" We counted sticks to-day. Two sticks and 
four sticks are six sticks. I don't know whether 
the sticks were round or square, or how long 



52 The Coming School. 

they were, but only that we had ten of them, 
and that we laid them in groups." 

It is not argued that nothing is accomplished 
by thus making one idea dominant, but that a bad 
mental habit is induced by too much of this work. 
The pupil learns to look at one phase of a subject 
and to ignore the others. One result is a weak 
power of valuation. The most obvious qualities 
of an article are noticed, the rest remain unstud- 
ied, because the mind has accustomed itself to 
dismiss objects thus after a partial consideration. 

Most of Dickens's caricatures consist of one 
human trait or eccentricity brought into bold 
relief against a very indistinct background. The 
reader that " wants to know more " about them 
has that desire in spite of a bad education. 
Most people judge one another by certain phases 
of character that are turned toward the observer, 
and are satisfied with the estimate so formed, 
although all our lessons in human nature are 
calculated to teach us that there is an impene- 
trable world behind these various seemings. Our 
real lessons come too late to change altogether 
our superficial habits of thought. One of these 
lessons comes bitterly home to many in the mar- 
riage choice. A man marries a woman for her 
beauty, not having learned to see more, and finds 
her little more than beautiful burden. A woman, 
who has not been taught the art of deeper study, 
takes a husband for his intellect and finds him a 
tyrant. 



The Coming School. 53 

The habit of studying a subject in all its bear- 
ings is one of the results that should be sought 
in the "object lessons " given to young children. 
Nay, more : these object lessons should supply and 
comprise nearly all the work of the primary schools. 
Percentage can be taught from the same object 
that is used to teach color. Geography can be 
taught from any terrestrial object. Grammar is 
best taught in the hourly use of language, and 
thus joins the circle of subjects that cluster 
around the object. A great deal of history may 
be taught from objects and pictures. The art 
of narrating may be taught in connection with 
objects. Drawing, painting, and modeling de- 
mand the direct observation of objects. Read- 
ing deals with objects. 

Much of the art of teaching depends upon 
the skill with which the teacher develops the 
possibilities of the individual object. She should 
ask the following questions in the order given : 

1. How many senses can I cultivate by means 
of this object ? 

2. How many elements of thought can I 
strengthen ? 

3. How many faculties of the mind and emo- 
tions of the soul can I exercise upon it ? 

4. How many school subjects can I teach 
from it ? 

5. What mental habits are involved ? 

Some of the first courses in reading that have 
been given from time to time in the Cook County 



54 The Coming School. 

Normal School of Illinois have been preserved, 
and they all illustrate the same general plan, 
varied in power by the relative skill of the teach- 
ers and in material by the season of the year. 

One of these courses was linked into a narra- 
tive and published in the form of a little pam- 
phlet for print reading for the class that had 
developed the lessons. The pamphlet was to 
be the first of a series, called " Busy Bee Stories, 
for Children who Like to be as Busy as Bees." 
No. i is entitled " Some Things that Willie 
Williams Did and some More Things that he is 
Going to Do." It opens as follows : 

Willie ran into the house as he came home 
from school, and shouted, " Oh, mamma, guess 
what we have studied at school to-day ! " 

" I cannot guess," said mamma. " What have 
you studied to-day, my dear?" 
' " We have studied oranges and lemons and 
limes and cranberries." 

" What did you find out about these good 
things, Willie ? " asked mamma. 
" We found out that : 
" The orange is orange color, 
" The lemon is yellow, 
" The apple is russet, 
" The cranberry is pink. 
" Then we hunted "—etc. 
The sentences in italics are those of the first 
reading lesson. The story continues from day 



The Coming School. 55 

to day, bringing in some home life and record- 
ing Willie's investigations at school. It ends 
with Willie's making a book, with a preface. His 
entire book 'is about the orange, in the study of 
which he had learned more than a hundred facts in 
the nature and history of the orange, in general 
botany, in physics, geometry, and mathematics. 
Whoever is curious to know how much can be 
made of a simple subject will do well to write for 
this pamphtet. 

Whether it is wise to spend so much time in 
getting experiences from one source, and whether 
all the facts learned were timely in growth, are 
very serious questions. Col. Parker's teachers 
are making a strong and united effort toward 
ideal teaching. They do not claim to make no 
mistakes. 

Education may be likened to a circle, the cen- 
ter of which is the child. The loving teacher, 
treading this circle round and round, with watch- 
ful eyes ever turned upon the child, and active 
brain and hands ever surrounding him with 
the best conditions for growth that environ- 
ment can yield and judgment select, may be 
tempted at any point into a tangential course. 
Some bright experience may prompt her to seek 
more of the material that afforded it after the 
child's appetite has been, for the time being, sat- 
isfied. Only the strong centripetal force of an 
unwavering love for the child can preserve the 
true circle. 



56 The Coming School. 

But, perhaps, had we watched this course of 
lessons on the orange, with its attractive experi- 
ments and its varied and constant references to 
" the rest of the world," we should have seen the 
eyes of the pupils as bright and eager at the last 
lesson of the series as at the first. 



CHAPTER III. 

SPECIAL LESSONS. 

There will always be need for special lessons 
to serve special purposes, such as the cultivation 
of some neglected sense or faculty. Special 
number drills will always be required, because the 
demands of life upon the arithmetical faculties 
are for a more than normal development. Pos- 
sibly special spelling drills, too, will never be quite 
dispensed with while the incongruities of Eng- 
lish spelling remain as great as at present, though 
this is by no means certain. There will be spec- 
ial lessons, also, induced by special occasions, as 
unusual opportunities present themselves, par- 
ticularly in the line of moral culture. It is 
a great art to seize every occasion for the moral 
training of a class or pupil without making good- 
ness hateful by ever singing maxims. The es- 
sence of moral culture is its spontaneity. 

The tone of the voice, the expression of the 
face, are more powerful agents with the young 
than moral lectures. Every school-day yields 



The Coming School. 57 

many an occasion for the earnest teacher to 
show an aversion for wrong-doing and a love 
for the right ; and the teacher who carries her 
class with her will not fail to impart her senti- 
ments to her pupils. 

There is not a reading lesson — there is hardly 
a lesson in any branch, which may not be made, 
directly or indirectly, moral in its influence. 
" Poor little thing ! " uttered in tones of pity by 
the teacher, when the story is about a wounded 
bird, will generate sympathy in the respon- 
sive heart of childhood. A pleased look when 
a good action is narrated will generate admira- 
tion for goodness. A shocked face when some 
tale of wrong-doing is related will generate in- 
dignation against the wrong. Children must not 
be preached at. What they want is to be turned 
toward the light, to be warmed with generous 
sentiments, to be imbued with moral tastes. If 
we can lead them to love the right and hate the 
wrong, they can be trusted to reform their own 
wayward natures. Only start them right and 
give them time and encouragement. 

And in these special lessons the Formalist will 
be a splendid helper. He has industriously 
graded all the studies, and his volumes of carefully 
arranged fact and principle will be of inestima- 
ble value to the natural teacher as reference 
books, as reminders of good things that might 
be left out of the training, and as a sort of gen- 
eral gauge of progress in the amassing of knowl- 



58 The Coming School. 

edge, which, though secondary, will remain one 
of the aims of the teacher. 

Such lessons as the following, in which much 
time is at present wasted by the majority of 
pupils, while the minority are taught, will, when 
all teachers have learned to classify and group 
their children according to their individual needs, 
still be given to those whose tardy growth re- 
quires such stimulation : 

Color Exercise. — Object : First, to test and 
exercise the pupils' power of discriminating be- 
tween colors ; second, to examine as to their 
knowledge of the names of the primary and 
secondary colors and to teach the same. 

Material : A plentiful supply of colored sticks 
on each pupil's desk and a color chart before 
the class. 

Operations. — 1. Pupils sort their sticks, while 
teacher superintends, watching for those whose 
color sense appears weak. Such children some- 
times confuse red with green, but, more ordi- 
narily, blue with purple. Finding, on one child's 
desk, the blue and purple laid together indis- 
criminately, the teacher says : " Here you have 
two colors together. Put all like this by them- 
selves, and all like this in another little pile." 
(The writer has yet to find the child that can not 
obey this direction, and has reached the conclu- 
sion that color-blindness is in all cases, or very 
nearly ail, a result of early negligence.) 



The Coming School. 59 

In the above operation the children have 
matched things of the same kind in close prox- 
imity and of exactly similar shades. 

2. Teacher points to a color on the chart and 
pupils hold up a stick of the same color. This 
is matching dissimilar things at a distance from 
each other, and not exactly corresponding in 
shade (though they should very nearly). (Work- 
ing among Germans the writer has found a uni- 
versal promptness when orange was called for. 
On the other hand, when the blue disc is indi- 
cated, at the first attempt eighty per cent, of 
the children hold up a purple stick. It would 
be interesting to compare these observations 
with similar ones made among Italian children.) 
" Some are holding up sticks like this," says the 
teacher, pointing to the purple disc, and down 
go some of the purple sticks. Then the teacher 
points out those that are right ; and, by com- 
parison of sticks, the number of purples is again 
diminished. When all but two or three have 
selected the right color, let several hold their 
blue sticks near a slow child's own assortment. 
In the writer's experience this has always suc- 
ceeded. 

3. Hold up a purple stick. Lay it at the left 
of your desk. Hold up a blue stick. Lay it so 
that it touches the purple. Hold up a green 
stick, etc. A yellow, etc. An orange. A red. 
Another purple. Another blue. (Repeat the 
series again and again, with watchfulness, con- 



60 The Coming School. 

fining the attention more and more to those 
children to whom the names seem least familiarly 
coupled with their colors.) 

An Odd-Minute Exercise. — Object: To 
cultivate the power of fixing the attention. 

" Look at the third word in the sixth line. 
Don't look at this, or this, or this, but keep on 
looking at the right word until I touch it. When 
I do, say ' Now /'" 

A pause, while the teacher points to words 
under, over, to the right, to the left, near and far- 
off, avoiding the right word as long as she thinks 
the weakest attention in her class will endure. 
At last she points to the third word in the sixth 
line, and the pupils eagerly exclaim "Now/" 

" Look steadily at the middle window, lower 
sash, central pane, until I touch it." 

She moves rapidly from window to window, 
touching many wrong panes before she touches 
the right one. 

In the school of the future, children over- 
bright in any given line of thought will be ex- 
cused from exercises in that line. 

Not long ago a visitor stood before a class of 
twelve-year-old children, to whom their teacher 
had just given a task in composition. The sub- 
ject was a picture which hung before the class 
as a stimulant to their imaginations. They were 
to write a story, suggested by the picture. The 
visitor scanned their faces — all thoughtful, but 



The Coming School. 61 

with different degrees of intensity. " From 
whom," said she, turning to the teacher, " do 
you expect the most brilliant production ? " 
" From that little girl in blue," was the reply, 
accompanied by a slight gesture toward the back 
of the room. The little girl in blue was, at the 
moment, looking out of the window, apparently 
oblivious to all but the busy creatures of her 
fancy. Her right hand, holding the pen in 
which the ink was drying, rested on the desk 
with an expression of waiting. " Is your little 
romancer equally proficient in all her studies ? " 
" Oh, no ! She is a rather poor speller, and 
fails deplorably in some departments of arith- 
metic." "In what departments ?" "Well, in 
the mechanical work. The more I vary the 
problems the better she likes it ; but she hates 
anything to be solved by rule. Her face clouds 
over every time I propound a question in simple 
interest, and she usually fails in the solution." 
" What means are you taking to produce in this 
little girl a respect for mechanical accuracy and 
a greater faithfulness to the duller duties of 
life ? " " None in particular. She gets the same 
practice that the rest do." " Then this child, 
whose imagination is by nature so active as to 
render her prosaic tasks more than usually irk- 
some, receives the same amount of culture for 
her dominant faculty as her neighbor, in whom 
that faculty is quite inert ? " " Yes. It is the 
best we can do, Our classes are large and we 



62 The Coming School. 

have to arrange our work accordingly. We 
give a definite amount of time to each study 
and all the children work together. What- 
ever the duller pupils do not get in that time 
they do not get at all. Some get too little 
culture, and I now see quite clearly some may 
get too much ; but we have little time to 
consider individuals." 

One of the chief objects of primary education 
is to encourage and strengthen weak activities, 
if not actually to suppress strong ones. The 
time for the cultivation of special gifts is not in 
childhood, for it can not then be done except at 
the expense of other growth, quite as important. 
Strong natural talents will take care of them- 
selves until the period of secondary education. 

It was my privilege to visit the Connecticut 
State Normal School, at New Britain, in the 
spring of 1886. Dare we hope that this is to 
be the coming school ? Will Froebelian and 
Pestalozzian teaching so pure and vigorous as 
this ever prevail in the common school? Will 
the taxpayer ever provide for the training of 
such teachers, in numbers sufficient to supply 
our schools, or, at least, our primaries ? 

It was the day of commencement for the 
normal graduates. 

The chief attraction early in the day appeared 
to be the kindergarten. The room devoted to 
this class is downstairs, but on this occasion the 



The Coming School. 63 

children were brought up to the assembly hall. 
How much they enjoyed the novelty of their sur- 
roundings it is impossible to say, but certain it 
is, they enjoyed a good romp until the time for 
opening school arrived. Then Miss Mingins 
and her seven serene assistants gathered them 
in by the armful, and achieved something like a 
circle of infant demureness seated on " chairs to 
match," with the big chairs and the big occu- 
pants scattered here and there. When order 
had thus been established, the exercises com- 
menced with a series of kindergarten songs, the 
pupils selecting their favorites for the occasion, 
and, of course, acting out the thoughts they 
sang. Their voices were perfectly tuned, and 
their enunciation very distinct. Then followed 
some of the kindergarten plays ; and, in spite 
of the abandonment of the little ones, order, in 
its truest sense, reigned supreme. The essence 
of a game is law. When the laws of any game 
are infringed, the game is destroyed. Obedience 
to law, then, is one of the constant lessons of 
these rollicking plays, and the smallest toddle- 
kins there had caught it. Only once did a 
player enter the ring uninvited, and that was on 
a mission of love. A baby of perhaps three 
years stood bewildered in the midst of the fun, 
not knowing enough to "take unto himself" a 
partner, as the others had done. A little girl 
sprang to his relief, seized his hands, and danced 
around the ring with him. 



64 The Coming School. 

Carried away with the spirit of these singing 
plays, the observer feels the full force of Plato's 
argument for music in education. Rhythmic 
law governing concerted action, with its soft 
persuasion, breeds in the soul a very high 
order of emotion, a something that binds 
together souls so moved, in unity of desire, 
in human sympathy, in love of perfect 
doing. It is a teacher of truth and rectitude 
unexcelled. 

The more worldly advantages of kindergarten 
training include the keen perceptions awakened 
of things, and of the fitness of things ; the ban- 
ishment of social restraint by a free adaptation 
of action to speech, and the added conversa- 
tional resources thus given. 

All day long, at this ideal school, ideal teach- 
ing was witnessed, some of which will be re- 
corded between these covers. " But," says the 
city teacher as she reads, " the pupil has not 
time for this all-sided growth." Who ever heard 
of a tree that had not time to grow in every part, 
of a horse that had not time to make six years' 
growth in six years ? " But," says the taxpayer, 
" we can not spend so much money on these 
primary children." Aye, there's the rub ! We 
send to school children whose " home start " is 
indicated in the table given below, and trust to 
letters, words, and figures to educate them: 
This table is taken from some statistics 
quoted by Prof. G. Stanley Hall, in a lecture 



The Coming School. 



65 



delivered at Johns Hopkins University, Feb. 
20, 1883 : 

Table I. — Per cent, of ignorance in 200 average children 
entering the Boston Public School in the fall of 1882 : 



Name of Per cent. of 


Name of 


Per cent, of 


concept. ignorance. 


concept. 


ignorance. 


Ant, 


65 


Forehead, 


15 


Robin, 


60 


Throat, 


13 


Sparrow, 


57 


Knee, 


7 


Sheep, 


54 


Stomach, 


6 


Bee, 


52 


Have not observed : 


Pig, 


47 


Dew, 


78 


Chicken, 


33 


Hail, 


73 


Butterfly, 


20 


Rainbow, 


65 


Hen, 


19 


Sunrise, 


56 


Cow, 


18 


Sunset, 


53 


Growing Wheat, 


92 


Clouds, 


14 


Pine-tree, 


87 


Moon, 


7 


Maple-tree, 


83 


No concept of : 




Growing : 




Island, 


87 


Strawberries, 


78 


Beach, 


55 


Corn, 


65 


Woods, 


53 


Potatoes, 


61 


Rivers, 


48 


Rose, 


54 


Pond, 


40 


Cherries, 


46 


Hill, 


28 


Apples, 


21 


Brook, 


15 


Cannot locate : 




No concept of : 




Ribs, 


90 


Triangle, 


92 


Lungs, 


81 


Square, 


56 


Heart, 


80 


Circle, 


35 


Ankles, 


65 


The No. 5, 


28 


Waist, 


52 


The No. 4, 


17 


Hips, 


45 


The No. 3, 


8 


Wrist, 


40 


No idea of ; 




Knuckles, 


65 


Green, 


15 


Elbow, 


25 


Blue, 


14 


Right and left hand, 


21 


Yellow, 


13 


Cheek, 


18 


Red, 


9 



66 The Coming School. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A QUESTION OF DATE. 

Only trained and able teachers will be in- 
trusted with the care of little children in the 
coming school. Says Prof. Lewis, principal of 
one of Brooklyn's very best schools, " We need 
excellent teachers all along the tine, but we can 
least afford to have a poor teacher in the baby 
class." Not even to fresh graduates from 
splendid training schools will this work be 
given. Training schools can not make teach- 
ers of all that apply at their doors, and, even 
when the promise is great, they can not put old 
heads on young shoulders. If it were only to 
count up the senses, the faculties, and the walks 
of life, to count up, on the other hand, the means 
of developing these human attributes and pre- 
paring for these human necessities, and then to 
go from pupil to pupil, fitting means to end as 
a fireman feeds fuel to his furnaces — if that 
were all there were in primary teaching, train- 
ing schools could soon fit industrious students 
for their class-room duties. But it is to watch 
over things invisible, to know coming events by 
the shadows they cast before them ; to bring to 
bear a manifold experience with older children 
upon the training of the younger ; to exercise, 
almost every moment of the day, a practiced judg- 
ment and a profound knowledge of psychology. 



The Coming School. 67 

The following question, which is its own com- 
mentary, was recently asked at a meeting of city 
teachers : 

" With more subjects to teach, more faculties 
in play, and more bad work to undo, does not 
the difficulty of teaching increase up the course ?" 

1. Why are " subjects " any harder to teach 
than objects ? 

2. It is, then, a misfortune to have the " fac- 
ulties in play." No wonder the Formalist tries 
to keep them down ! 

3. " More bad work to undo! 1 * And the par- 
ents look on and smile ! 

The recent course in psychology, given to peda- 
gogical students at the University of the City of 
New York, emphasized again and again the im- 
measurable importance of a child's earlier school- 
ing. The Primary Teachers' Association of New 
York City, in a memorial to the Board of Educa- 
tion, indorsed by the Grammar Teachers' Asso- 
ciation, urge upon the Board, above all else ; the 
establishment of introductory classes under teach- 
ers of exceptionally high qualifications. There 
has existed in Brooklyn for three years a society 
of teachers having for its object " organized and 
earnest inquiry into the best methods of teach 
ing little children." Forty-four Brooklyn Princi- 
pals have just signed a paper to the effect that the 
work of the lowest grade is " peculiarly difficult, 
extremely arduous, and of prime importance, 
as the foundation of all subsequent school work." 



68 The Coming School. 

Some formalist, admitting that the child's 
entire life is affected by the primary teacher's 
work, adds, " But this is equally true of all suc- 
ceeding teachers and associations of life." Not 
equally, because human character is not clay, to 
be formed and reformed at the touch of suc- 
ceeding potters. It solidifies as it grows. If 
" bad habits can be corrected to a large extent," 
how much better, after all, would be prevention ! 
And how can any one, claiming the name of 
educator, advise that this tender plant, charac- 
ter, which the schools dare to take in charge, be 
left to struggle, up, as best it may, through years 
of comparative darkness, with a skilled hand 
and a pruning-knife waiting somewhere above, 
to lop off the abnormal growth it makes ! Mr. 
C. A. Gleason, Principal of a splendid Newark 
school, does not so advise. These are his senti- 
ments : 

" Give me my choice of teachers who shall have 
charge of the children during their first four 
years at school, and I will answer for the rest of 
the course." 

This seems reasonable from thefollowingcon- 
sideration : We know that children whose senses 
are wide awake and whose mental perceptions 
are unusually keen and quick can go through the 
worst school and come out with an education, 
profiting by so-called teaching that leaves their 
duller neighbors very ignorant indeed. If, as is 
claimed by leading educators, the average child 



The Coming School. 69 

can be put into this attitude of mental alertness 
by skillful early teaching, the subsequent work 
of conducting his education may become a less 
arduous matter. 

Here and there, throughout the educational 
world, there is a slow awakening among the peo- 
ple to this fact that young children need the 
most scientific care. Parents are developing a 
willingness to pay for kindergarten. Among 
eminent educators, some are to be found whose 
conviction is strong enough to prompt letters to 
the author such as the following, the first from 
the former editor of the New England Journal 
of Education, the second from a man who is, 
more determinedly than any other, following in 
the footsteps of Froebel, and putting a sublime 
theory into almost as sublime a practice. 

" As the primary school is at the beginning of 
the school course, its work is the foundation of 
all that follows. It should be the best educational 
work in the child's life ; and, consequently, it de- 
mands the best instruction under the best teach- 
ers. And it is quite as clear that the most im- 
portant work, under the eye and hand of the 
best instructors, should receive the high- 
est compensation. It is still further true that 
the great body of the children in our public 
schools are in the primary grades, or the 
first five years of school life. This fact 
is an added reason for the employment of 



70 The Coming School. 

the best teaching talent in grades below the 
grammar school. 

" As to the true work of the teacher, it is abso- 
lutely certain that instruction is her highest func- 
tion ; and, while instruction and discipline take 
on various forms, those which most directly 
train and develop child-mind and character are 
of the greatest value to the child and the future 
man. 

" Does it not follow, from what I have said, 
that the largest experience, the best-paid talent, 
and the most correct teaching and training, 
should be applied to the advantage of the chil- 
dren in our primary grades ? 
" Most truly, 

" T. W. Bicknell." 

" The teacher of the little beginners should 
have the highest salary paid in any grade to 
teachers of single classes. I have not the time 
or space to give here all my reasons for this con- 
clusion. One or two I state. It requires greater 
skill and greater knowledge to teach beginners 
than to teach any other grade. All teaching 
and training leads directly to the formation of 
good or bad habits. The impressible six-year- 
old, under the domination of a teacher, and in a 
new world — the school-room — will easily form 
bad habits that neither time nor training can 
ever eradicate. Good habits can, under the 
right directing, be as easily formed as bad ones. 



The Co?ning School. 71 

" A primary teacher should see the relation of 
her teaching to all work in subsequent grades, 
ideally. She should know the whole work. She 
should be a teacher of large experience. 
"Yours truly, 

" F. W. Parker." 

When a few of these things reach more gen- 
erally the public comprehension, we shall hear, 
from primary teachers, no more such complaints 
as the following : 

A pedagogical preacher said to me not long since, 
" Teachers need more soul." I replied, " Examiners need 
more soul." 

My trouble is that I have too much for my own profit. 
Miss A. my companion teacher, laughs at me for it. She 
and I live together in a mechanism consisting of three 
wheels — Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. She exerts 
herself to make the wheels go round as many times a day 
as possible. I let my soul get in my way. Every revolution 
of each wheel is recorded, and when the examiner comes 
with his note-book, he never asks why my wheels have 
not turned as many times as hers. I of 1 en wonder what 
would be the result if he should do so, and I should reply : 

" I stopped here to march or beat time to the music of 
the band playing outside the window, so that my pupils' 
rhythmic sense might receive opportune cultivation. 

" I paused here to awaken admiration for Tommy's 
chivalry in saving Sallie from the terrible geese, and to 
deepen the impression by letting the children draw the ex- 
citing scene on their slates. 

" I stopped the wheels a moment again to draw a telling 
parallel between Washington's noble courage when a truth- 
speaking boy, and his fearlessness as a soldier in manhood. 
It touched a heroic chord, as the boys' faces plainly showed, 
and I gained tact for other lessons like it. 



72 The Coming School. 

" I let an exercise in writing slip one day, because a lit- 
tle fellow seemed anxious to describe his father's slaughter- 
house, and I thought it a good opportunity to display and 
arouse anxiety regarding the manner of putting the animals 
to death ; to move the little hearts with a desire to have the 
necessary killing done as quickly and as painlessly as 
possible." 

I wonder what he would say, or if he would be induced 
to give me an additional mark for incidental teaching? I 
stand too much in awe of him to ask. 

It is painful for me to know that my companion teacher 
"brings more credit to the school, "and that she is therefore 
more popular with the principals, examiners, etc. ; but 
I can not help seizing opportunities for character-build- 
ing, and I don't want to. Do you think examiners will 
learn to draw just comparisons in my day? 



The poor soul that sent this to an educational 
journal does not know that her examiner him- 
self is weighed down by difficulties ; that he 
can not stop to distinguish between her and her 
less " soulful " neighbors ; that he must be guided 
by general rules, and that the general rule in 
primary classes is the young, ill-paid, untrained, 
and inexperienced teacher, whose " results " must 
be periodically measured by some standard that 
will everywhere fit and serve the purposes of 
economy and haste. Nor does she realize that 
the time is not yet ripe for the direct application 
of the purest educational truths. 

The cradle-song has a subtle effect in the 
future character that modern thinkers are begin- 
ning to analyze, and the " lesson learned at the 



The Coming School. 73 

mother's knee," has long been recognized as 
one of destiny's most powerful agents. Yet the 
very men who appear to give these potent early 
influences their full due will sometimes be found 
hunting up arguments to prove that the best 
teachers should be placed in the higher classes. 

Notwithstanding the argument of eminent 
thinkers, notwithstanding the practical exposi- 
tion by Froebel, there are even those who still 
hold that sense education is no part of the func- 
tion of the common school — that the accidents 
of a child's environment have sufficiently trained 
his sense perceptions before he arrives at school 
age, or will complete the work without scientific 
aid after that age ; or that what the accidents 
of environment fail to do for the child can not 
be done by the teacher's art, or is not worth 
while in comparison with the studies of the cur- 
riculum. Since this argument, or rather, this 
series of assumptions is made, even at the pres- 
ent day, the basis of what are called systems of 
education, it merits a careful examination alike 
by teachers who choose, or should choose, among 
systems, and by intelligent parents, who choose, 
or should choose, among teachers. Let us test 
these assumptions in their order. 

The first is that the child of five or six is 
sufficiently trained in the use of his senses by 
the exercise he has given them in the course of 
his play and childish observation of the objects 
around him. This depends upon three things : 



74 The Coming School. 

The child's natural tendency to observe, the 
amount of direction he may have received from 
others, and the contents of his environment. We 
may readily grant that every child has about 
him abundant material upon which to exercise 
all of his sense powers, thus reducing the argu- 
ment to two considerations. It will be freely 
conceded, on the other hand, that the amount of 
intelligent direction received by young children 
at home is a variable quantity, thus weakening 
the conclusion. That the natural avidity of 
children for sight, sound, etc., also varies is 
proved by the early manifestations of genius in 
pictorial art and music, and, throwing exceptions 
aside, by the varying powers of elementary dis- 
crimination shown by children in public nurser- 
ies, where many together are influenced by the 
same environment and direction. Our assump- 
tion must therefore be reversed, the probability 
being that, as not all children get the same 
amount of sense education before school age, 
some children may not get enough. 

The second assumption, that environment will 
complete the work of sense training after school 
age, again depends upon the adequacy of en- 
vironment, the uses to which it is put by the 
child's directors, and the child's own natural or 
acquired grasp. Admitting again the practical 
equality of environment in material for element- 
ary knowledge, we have, again, two varying 
quantities to deal with. Among children, none 



The Coming School. 75 

receive all sense elements with equal clearness, 
and not all have an equal general sensitiveness 
to varying sense impressions. Among teachers, 
those of the school we are discussing take from 
environment and present to the child,, not what 
he needs to fill the gap left by a hitherto acci- 
dental culture, but things quite foreign to his 
nature, habits and needs — ugly word forms and 
unintelligible statements, a sudden and harsh 
compulsion of conscious thought in awful 
stretches, and meaningless successions of sounds 
(such as "Blood is red," to the child that can 
not see red). The teacher of the Froebelian 
school examines the child's powers of element- 
ary observation. Jf he can not distinguish 
between red and green, or between purple and 
blue, she trains him to do so (which can be done 
usually or always in a few exercises). If he can 
not discriminate between musical or articulate 
sounds she directs his attention to these. The 
result of such teaching is that the pupil in time 
gives his own intelligent judgment that " Blood 
is red," and does not grow up unable quickly to 
distinguish between ludricious and ludicrous, or 
to distinguish at all between the a in marry and 
the a in fairy (both examples taken from real 
life among the graduates of common schools). 
Environment rightly used by the teacher will do 
all that it is possible to do for the child. En- 
vironment left to itself will do a great deal. 
Environment made up to serve the purpose of a 



7 6 The Coming School. 

hasty ambition will invariably thwart natural 
growth. 

To proceed to the third assumption, that the 
teacher's art can not successfully supplement 
the accidents of a child's undirected observa- 
tion : This is a question of date. It is prob- 
able that by no course of training could a color- 
blind adult be enabled to distinguish the colors 
that are blank or confused to him. It is well 
proven in practice, however, that the child of six 
can be rapidly taught new distinctions in color ; 
distinctions which he has not yet made spon-. 
taneously, and in some cases would not without 
direction. If there are exceptions to this among 
children with otherwise normal sight, I have 
neither met them nor heard of them. The 
principle underlying this question of date is that 
there is a time for the cultivation of every power. 
If taken in its early growing time a power may be 
hastened in its perhaps too slow development ; as 
this age passes into the irrecoverable past the 
culture increases in difficulty until it reaches 
impossibility. We have met assumption three 
merely with a counter statement. It would be 
difficult for either side to submit proofs, but 
teachers and parents may verify one or the other 
by incidents from private experience. 

The last assumption is that other than acci- 
dental sense training is not worth while, in 
view of more pressing things. Ignoring the full 
poetry and completeness of life which none have 



The Coming School. 77 

ever known, but toward which education should 
at least tend ; granting that it is neither dollars 
and cents nor yet social position to read " The 
purple clouds, just tinged with gold " and see a 
glow of color, let us regard the more severely 
practical phase of the question. To what extent 
does progress in the prescribed studies of the 
common school curriculum depend upon previ- 
ous sense culture ? 

In the first place, a child should certainly be 
able to tell a circle from a triangle before he is 
expected to distinguish word forms. The teacher 
who does not or can not stop to examine into 
her pupil's mental attitude in this respect works 
in the dark and often prescribes a cruelly ardu- 
ous task. The child upon whom word forms 
are crowded too early grasps at them vainly at 
first, gradually gets a slippery footing among 
them, remembers his first reading lessons as the 
chief misery of his childhood, learns to regard 
words as the objects most claiming the study of 
mortals, disregards meanings as superfluities, 
and only, after painful years, if ever, becomes 
an intelligent reader. The obstructions placed 
by premature exactions of one kind are usually 
augmented by oversights in other directions. 

None will gainsay that much of the intelligi- 
bility of what we read results from the parallelism 
of our own observations with those of the writer. 
The child of slow sense perceptions should, 
therefore, have them quickened at the proper 



78 The Coming School. 

time, if only that his school studies may be 
illumined by many rays from his personal experi- 
ence. Words and sentences can represent to 
him only what he has known, in old or new rela- 
tions. If in any given line of observation he 
has known nothing, as in the case of the color- 
blind, a whole category of words must remain 
meaningless to him. Can he be as intelligent a 
reader with these ever-recurring blanks before 
him as he would if there were no blanks. There 
is nothing children so soon become calloused to 
as empty words. They say nothing about them 
to their teachers, who, in the hurry of daily work, 
are compelled to take many things for granted, 
and judge, from the borrowed tones of their 
pupils, that the reading lessons are more intelli- 
gible to them than they really are. They go on 
in placid ignorance from class to class until 
some teacher, well advanced in the course, dis- 
covers with open-eyed astonishment that they 
are lacking in rudimentary perceptions. The 
discoveries of these advanced teachers continu- 
ally tend to focus thought upon the remote 
beginnings of the child's schooling. The cry 
for kindergartens is heard wherever professional 
spirit is most earnestly engaged with evils, causes, 
and remedies. Here and there it waxes so loud 
that a whole city answers it with supply. The 
school of assumptionists in education is gradu- 
ally yielding before the school of investigators. 



The Coming School. 79 

CHAPTER V. 

PRESENT PROMISE. 

In 1887 the National Teachers' Association 
met at Chicago. The principal feature of the 
Convention was a grand exhibit of school prod- 
ucts from nearly all parts of the Union, the 
larger cities of the East being most thinly rep- 
resented. It was evident here that manual train- 
ing is making a brave struggle for recognition, 
with more or less intelligence of design accord- 
ing to the localities represented, here and there, 
being sadly mixed up with trade-teaching. This 
is not its aim in the kindergarten, nor should it 
be in the school. Manual work is one of the 
most efficient aids in concept forming and in 
training all the intellectual and moral faculties 
and the will, while it incidentally fits the hand 
for the skillful performance of whatever labor 
life may afterward require of it. The teaching 
of trades narrows the effort, and consequently 
the culture, to given lines. There is no place 
for it in that garden for rounded development, 
the Primary School. 

In the coming school, physical exercise, in- 
cluding the labor of the hands, will every- 
where second head-work. Mimicry of animals, 
machinery, etc., emotional narrative, etc., will 
impart so much of ease and grace in dramatic 



80 The Coming School. 

expression that Delsarte will never be needed 
to loosen the rusty hinges of natural gesture. 
Rapid representation in drawing will supplement 
verbal description as naturally with the ordinary 
pupil as it now does with the artist. The hand 
will also be quick to give the brain's conceptions 
visible form in the most suitable material at 
hand, and the reaction of this form of expres- 
sion on thought will be seen in increased men- 
tal vigor and clearness. I never tried to model 
anything in clay but once. It was a rainy holi- 
day and the clay was handy. The impulse 
seized me to mold a human head. I made a ball 
about four inches in diameter, and set it on a 
column about two inches and a half thick. I 
cut off the sides of the ball and added to the 
back until I thought I had reached the propor- 
tions of the typical head. Then I commenced 
to shape the face and to mold the features. As 
they took form I saw that my clay head was 
much too broad. I took some more from the 
sides and increased the height. I had to do this 
several times as the face progressed, each time 
wondering to find how far from spherical the 
human head is. My task was so fascinating that 
I spent the entire day and evening at it. I was 
delighted to find that I could make the 
eyes, nose, and mouth so perfectly, and to 
see every touch applied to cheeks and fore- 
head , give them a more flesh-like contour. 
The little clay ears 'looked so pretty, I wished 



The Coming School, Si 

that my vocation in life had been that of a 

sculptor. 

The face, when I ceased operations, was a re- 
fined one, rather sad in expression, and of the 
German type. It would almost have passed for 
a cast of Schiller. It seemed to say, " The 
sweetest boon to the reflective mind is mel- 
ancholy." That contained a suggestion of 
brains,' which I almost persuaded myself lay 
behind it. 

I did not realize, at the time, how much edu- 
cation that seemingly idle day meant for me ; 
but I found myself involuntarily observing faces 
more closely after it. Peculiarities of feature 
and variations in the forms of heads were noticed 
as never before. Strange that such a trifling in- 
cident should help one to understand Froebel 
more than a whole course of lectures could pos- 
sibly have done ! 

Pitying my poor little geographers, blindly 
stumbling over the hard names on the meaning- 
less map, I made, once, a most strenuous effort to 
give them a concept of the earth. I took a 
small paper globe, built the continents and 
mountains grotesquely high with wax, colored 
the fertile portions of the land green, the barren 
portions brown, the shore line gray, the polar re- 
gions and higher mountain-tops white, and the 
ocean surface with silver paint. The result was 
surprising. It gave me my own first crude con- 
cept of the earth. The way the mountain ranges 



82 The Coming School. 

curled over its curved surface was a startling 
revelation to me. 

But who is there, whose private experience 
can not furnish incidental proof that the hand is 
the helpmeet of the brain ? All honor to the 
eager army of reformers who are forcing manual 
training into the schools ! Everywhere, now, 
that educational progress finds the least encour- 
agement, the art of " making " has entered in. 
Mr. Gleason's Newark pupils make nearly every- 
thing they draw. Among the manufactures are 
pocket-books, made in paper and leather, after 
drawings, previously constructed. Also geo- 
metric forms, as the pyramid, cone, etc., made 
in paper. Some pretty effects in maps are pro- 
duced in perforated work. Putty and dough 
maps also adorn the walls of the school, and 
there is one cut out of wood. Here a small 
cabinet or set of shelves, and there an embroid- 
ered curtain are the handiwork of the pupils, 
by whom, also, all the varied and beautiful deco- 
rations of blackboards and walls are designed 
and executed. In this respect, in punctuality, 
and in spelling, which is taught very simply and 
successfully, Mr. Gleason's will do to represent 
the coming school. 

At Mr. Giffin's school, Newark, some useful 
hints are to be gleaned toward that happy link- 
ing and merging of the various studies so con- 
ducive to the solidity of the whole mass of 
knowledge gained. For instance, as a feature 



The Coming School. 83 

of the opening exercises, Mr. Giffin sometimes 
calls for " one of our eastern storms." It is 
made by the production of various hissing and 
rustling sounds, which, blended, make a very 
good imitation of the wind. As he increases or 
diminishes the distance between his extended 
hands, the storm rages and lulls. Then, per- 
haps, a western cyclone is invited, and it comes 
like — like a cyclone. It is produced in a similar 
manner to the Jersey breeze, with the addition 
of the shuffling and stamping of feet. Its force 
is regulated by the leader as easily as that of 
.the lesser tempest. Is this any better in its 
mental effect than the dull conning of half- 
understood questions and answers about the 
climate of the great West ? Does it cultivate 
habits of attention and responsiveness ? Does 
it develop the idea of modulation ? Does it 
give anything toward an adequate conception 
of storms of various characters ? Does it dis- 
play economy of pedagogical effort by utilizing 
recreation and physical exercise in adding to 
mental growth ? Does it illustrate a principle of 
indirect teaching ? — while the mind is pleasurably 
intent on one idea, are others slipping in una- 
wares ? Is the art of expression cultivated ? 
Mr. Giffin, by the way, in his text-book, " Civics 
for Young Americans," prepares a lighter road 
to a knowledge of governmental fact than was 
traversed by the Young Idea, whose weary glean- 
ings are preserved by Miss Le Row. The Young 



84 The Coming School. 

Idea, when he sees this little work, so simply 
written and so inspiring to young patriotism, 
will wish he could live his school life o'er again. 
To return to the above mentioned exhibit : 

The welding of kindergarten and public school was best 
taught by the exhibit from La Porte, Ind. Mr. Hailman, 
of this place, has been the very efficient welder. The care- 
less observer, in passing through these booths, is sometimes 
heard to exclaim, "How much kindergarten work ! " but 
Mr. Hailman objects to this. The work of the kindergar- 
ten is done between the ages of three and six, and the sub- 
sequent training built upon its broad foundation is but to 
strengthen the habits and tendencies established in the 
lower school, to lead smoothly on to the higher studies, to 
furnish hand work and assist head work all along the vari- 
ous lines of tuition. This work leads on into art and out- 
ward into science by lines of thought and manipulation 
commenced in the kindergarten ; but, its purpose there 
once served, it is no longer kindergarten work. 

During the first and second years these children do a 
very great deal of clay molding, and the most is made of 
their products. When a perfect cube is produced, its sur- 
faces are used to teach the square. Not only this, but 
these square sides are decorated, in the course of color 
teaching. Sometimes the cube is hollowed out ; sometimes 
the corners are cutoff ; sometimes both these modifications 
are applied ; and with each new form thus made new sub- 
divisions of surfaces into plane figures are produced and 
new variations in color decoration applied. Then the 
sides of the cube are cut off, making square placques, upon 
which flower studies in clay are glued, or later, upon which 
reliefs are carved or molded. Thus the most is made of 
the cube. The economic value of the sphere is similarly 
extended. Useful things are made of the geometric solids, 
as a child's bank from the sphere, another from the cube, 
a churn and a barrel from the cylinder, paper weights from 
the cube, etc. Natural objects are molded in great pro- 



The Coming School. 85 

fusion and with wonderful effectiveness. These are all 
painted and in remarkably natural colors. But for the 
tell-tale weight of the half-ripe apple you pick up from this 
table you would be tempted to bite it. The children select 
and mix their own colors. Among their decorated clay 
work are a pretty bank in the form of a drum ; a pair of 
brown cloth slippers lined with buff ; a black and red 
checker-board, with a nearly finished game upon it ; some 
"rainbow studies,'" in which one color overlaps another in 
such order as to produce the solar spectrum ; a wagon of 
fruit and vegetables, suggesting a vender out of sight in 
some alley, leaving to the tender mercies of the street 
urchins his square quart of berries, his round peck measure, 
his watermelons and mu-kmelons, his onions, turnips, rad- 
ishes, etc- There is also a very motherly hen on her nest; 
a saucy little bird, peeping out from its nest in a hole at 
the bottom of a tree trunk ; and other equally graphic 
representations of mental pictures thus expressed by the 
pupils. This conceptional work is followed in the third 
and fourth years by experimental and inventive work, now 
largely conducted on paper. The variety of form com- 
binations and the richness of coloring show with what fear- 
lessness these children work. Yer, they are under constant 
guidance. One exercise given them in their dictation work 
is to paint a square of one primary color and then to paint 
another, overlapping it half-way. A secondary color is thus 
produced and its contrast with both primaries shown. In 
what may be called the elaborative work, a central figure 
is dictated and the pupils are permitted to add some idea 
of their own, the same on all sides ; or, a geneial plan or 
outline is suggested and the pupil left to fill it according 
to his own fancy. Pretty designs in experimental drawing 
are obtained by laying sticks and tablets. These are drawn 
in wonderfully delicate lines after the pupils have had a 
little training. The conceptional graphic drawings by 
second-year pupils set forth the fancies that roam through 
the young minds of the artists, accompanied by written 
explanations, as, " This man is coming to town to sell this 



86 The Coming School. 

load of straw to get money to buy things." Thus drawing 
is made an aid in teaching composition, spelling, and pen- 
manship. This conceptional drawing ceases with the 
third year, the pupils having now learned the value of 
truth in representation and to seek it through observation 
and experiment. The order in drawing is : first, the con- 
ceptional ; second, from objects ; third, from dictation 
(begun in paper-folding, etc.) ; fourth, elaborative ; fifth, 
inventive. The system, Mr. Hailman contends, was not 
made by any grown man, but by the growing child. The 
aim is unity, individuality, and diversity. From twenty 
minutes to half an hour a day is devoted to this work, and 
the time is extended after school hours when the pupils so 
desire. 

The compass is used in the lowest grade. When pupils 
can make their own tools, they do so. When a new thing 
is given, the children are immediately taught to use it. 
The teachers and children supply a part of the material 
used. Children are not taught to use the right hand ex- 
clusively. The social instinct is cultivated in young chil- 
dren by such exercises as this : Each of four children is 
given two or more paper forms. They stand around a 
small table. One child lays a form down in the center. 
His opposite neighbor follows, and then the other two lay 
their forms in symmetrical relation to the first two. Then 
No. I offers another contribution and the rest carry out his 
suggestion of position on their respective sides. This is 
continued until the papers are all laid. The result is a 
regular plane form which may be used in design or may 
stand alone for its beauty. At first each child regards his 
papers as " mine "; in the end all regard them as " ours," 
and no member of the little community would spoil the 
"harmonious whole" by selfishly withdrawing his own 
contribution. This game is called, " Follow your leader." 

The schools of La Porte number about fifteen hundred 
children. The classes average forty pupils, and each 
teacher keeps the same pupils two years, so that her sudy 
may be the individual and her aim "spherical develqp- 



The Coming School. 87 

ment." Primary teachers are paid higher salaries than 
grammar teachers. 

The growth of individual pupils under this system is 
shown by books containing their work in writing, in pasting, 
in drawing, etc. From the first crude attempts of the new- 
comer the improvement is so gradual, so assured, so contin- 
uous, that the plain and unavoidable inference is, unremit- 
ting interest and effort. 

One more point or two regarding the minutiae of work 
not seen in other exhibits. The younger children had 
gratified their fancy in the world of blocks by building block 
picnic benches and tables, seating paper dolls on the 
former, and setting the latter with tablets and shells for 
dishes. In these booths were seen the first really beautiful 
effects in tablet laying. (This work was probably done 
" socially.") The paper solids were neatly bound at 
corners with colored paper, and they were exceedingly 
varied in conception and neat in construction. A collection 
of skins of furry and wooly animals indicated some study 
in this direction. Specimens of gums, minerals, and woods 
were seen attached to sheets of pasteboard, and the various 
grains and spices were exhibited in bottles. Squares and 
hexagons of mosaic work in wood, each done by four chil- 
dren, indicated an extended application of the " social " 
work formerly done with paper. A little paper, published 
in the spring of the year, its columns filled with the corrected 
compositions of first-year pupils, affords supplementary 
reading for the class, teaches the little ones "how books 
are made," and indicates to the observer the character and 
tendencies of reading and composition as taught in this 
grade. 

Walking through these booths, admiring the various 
special products of education as individual educators make 
them visible, feeling many a heart-throb of glad hopeful- 
ness for generations to come at sight of the rays of light 
that stream so strongly through the breaking clouds, one 
was, nevertheless, haunted by a wish for more unity, more 
soundness, more completeness of character development 



88 The Coming School. 

than even a sanguine imagination could infer from what 
was obvious in the several exhibits. The constant reflection 
beset one, " This is excellent, but this is not all." In the 
exhibits from the La Porte schools and the exposition of 
their plan and drift, by their very able superintendent, Mr. 
Hailman, one lost that sense of incompleteness and plainly 
recognized a most masterly attempt at that rounded develop- 
ment, without which, as an ideal, the most energetic educa- 
tors can but achieve distortion. 

The Work of the Cook County Normal School. — But 
the exhibit of the La Porte schools did not fully set forth the 
aims, processes, and results of the entire school course, as 
did the Cook County normal school of Illinois, Col. F. W. 
Parker, principal. For the fullness of fullness it was nec- 
essary to go to this booth — the warmest in all the immense 
hall, but by far the most attractive to the searcher after 
" spherical development," in spite of the physical discom- 
forts of dog-day weather within its enclosure. 

The exhibits from the school were arranged by grade, 
and the work of each grade was laid out in special lines, so 
that the observer could, if he chose, follow each line separ- 
ately from beginning to end of the course. No subject 
once admitted into the system was slighted; no subject was 
petted; nothing was omitted that was necessary to show 
the equal and harmonious development of all-phased power 
in the small human beings intrusted to these teachers for 
their start in life. 

In the first grade were to be found the usual kinder- 
garten products, stick-laying, paper-folding, mat-weaving, 
sewing on cardboard, clay modeling, block-building, etc. 
Side by side with these were the evidences of botanical and 
zoological study, painted flowers, birds, etc., and the same 
in clay moldings . Compositions, embodying the children's 
descriptions of these natural objects, further indicated their 
mode of study. Then there were other language lessons 
illustrated by conceptional drawings. There were lessons 
in worsted and paints, on cardboard, showing instruction 



The Coming School. 89 

in the primary and secondary colors, and discs of flannel for 
further illustration, leading up to that complex article of 
infant manufacture, the penwiper. There*was number 
work, illustrated by original drawings. Everything showed 
intelligent experiment, independent thought, and cheerful 
effort on the part of the children. 

In the second grade, or year, these various lines of in- 
struction (or perhaps training would be a better word) 
were continued, with a marked advance in complexity of 
subjects and in skill of execution. The composition work 
included the story of Columbus. 

In the third grade, representations in paper of geometri- 
cal solids appeared. Zoology was extended to a study of 
human bones by observation and description, and a stuffed 
weasel had posed for its picture before an entire.class of 
artisis in water-colors. The botanical exhibit included pre- 
served specimens and colored drawings of a still greater 
variety of plan's ; and this drawing and the penmanship in 
the accompanying compositions indicated steady and suc- 
cessful effort toward higher ideals of form and neatness. 
In language, more independence was manifested. The 
painting and description of a water-lily were noticeable for 
their especial merit. The stories of King Midas and Little 
Red Riding-Hood were among the reproductions. The 
drawings to illustrate simple operations in number were ap- 
parently dropped in this grade, but when a new subject in 
arithmetic, such as square measure, was introduced, draw- 
ing was again made a. help and an evidence of the pupil's 
clearness of mental vision. In all lines of work the same 
sure and steady progress was to be traced. 

Fourth year. Here we found really beautiful paintings, 
especially one of the wild ro<=e, and really beautiful mold- 
ings of shells, sprays, butterflies, plants, etc. In zoology, 
the frog had once more been a favored study, and the 
human teeth and skeleton had received much attention. 
There were illustrated compositions enumerating and locat- 
ing the bones and describing them as to form and function. 
In number, the subject of interest was taken up, with the 



9Q The Coining School. 

usual infusion of li ve, objective teaching. The collection 
of manufactures by pupils contained some pretty cardboard 
houses. 

Fifth year. Methods of teaching geography in this 
grade were illustrated by drawings of the various articles 
manufactured in the localities studied, and specimens of 
natural products described in the compositions to which 
they were attached. North America had been studied, as 
a whole, in this manner (the first scientific presentaiion of 
geography). The basins of the Mississippi and the St. 
Lawrence had then received separate attention. The 
course in natural science was indicated by some really 
artistic relief moldings ot birds, quadrupeds, fish, the 
human ear, etc. , and the side of a cottage and the front of 
somepublic building were added to this exhibit. Some pretty 
specimens of hammered brass included the picture of a 
crane. In aiiihmetic, the pupils had completed interest, 
and, apparently, disposed of fractions (which, by the way, 
are not dealt with for the first time in this grade, but enter 
into the arithmetical problems of the first and all other 
years). 

Sixth year. The colored drawings in connection with 
geography as taught in this grade included spools of cotton, 
barrels of sugar, sticks of barber's-pole candy, and the map 
of South America. Compositions on sugar and the Ama- 
zon were displayed, showing much grasp of language and 
an easy, graceful penmanship. The botanical drawings, 
especially those of the strawberry, were more and more 
creditable. Arithmetic in this grade deals largely with per- 
centage, and again numerical drawings are brought into use, 
as in the case of nine saucy, pansy faces, with three shut 
off from the others like naughty children, by a line drawn 
between, in response to the direction, "Show 33 1-3 per 
cent, of 9." In relief molding the frog again comes to 
light, this time accompanied by a lizard. Also a lighthouse, 
a wild rose with its spray of leaves, and a bunch of black- 
berries deserve mention. 

Seventh year. History begun as a separate branch of 



The Coming School. 91 

study ; paper dolls dressed in Revolutionary costumes ; 
molding of Plymouth Rock with date 1620 chiseled there- 
on ; pen-and-ink sketch of Plymouth, with pilgrim settle- 
ment ; drawings of spinning-wheel, log-cabin, Standish 
House, home-made cradle, and manufactures illustrating 
Puritan times. Compositions on same in what may be called 
a final adult chirography, legible and graceful. Wood- 
carving in relief, "Mother," deer, crane, etc. Manufac- 
tures, paper- rack ornamented with carving of oak-leaves. 
Models in clay of heads, faces, and parts of same. Geog- 
raphy, putty relief maps of six continents ; shaded draw- 
ings of Europe , Chinese empire, bread-fruit, caoutchouc tree, 
tea and coffee plants. Zoology, study of heart and lungs ; 
more frogs. Botany, study of cherry and red maple; col- 
ored drawings increasing in delicacy and truth. Arithmetic, 
cubic measure. Problem : * ' Draw a cubic yard to the scale" 
of one inch to the foot, and ask five questions about (he 
surfaces and five about the solid. " Problem in percentage : 
" Make four drawings of an object and state the per cents, 
that you see." (This was answered by the following draw- 
ings among others : 4 fans, differently colored ; 4 glass 
marbles ; 4 clocks, elaborately drawn ; and by such state- 
ments as " 75 per cent, of 4 houses is 3 houses " ; " £ of 
4 lilies is 50 per cent.") History, successive divisions of 
North America by ruling tribes and nations, shown in series 
of historical colored maps, executed by pupils, with color 
keys and dates. A full-rigged ship, hull four feet, stood to 
testify to the manner in which a boy who had several times 
crossed the ocean had been led to give concrete expression 
to his memories of travel. 

Eighth year. The historical maps now arranged in com- 
plete sets and bound in books. Drawings of Rensselaer 
arms and Schuyler arms, of Gov. Schuyler, of the Stadts 
Huys. of the "Good Old Times " at Plymouth, of a group 
of Dutch relics, and of the various occupations of women in 
the Puritan days. Compositions on similar subjects. Geo- 
graphy, a special study of South America, with ordinary 
black and colored map-drawing, and compositions. Bot- 



92 The Coming School. 

any, the radish, beet and leek, well painted and described. 
Arithmetic, some problems in commission and brokerage, 
and some in the simpler operations, illustrated, as in lowest 
grade, by drawings. 

A Class. A section of the earth's crust, drawn in colors 
by pupils, the drawings riled between boards ornamented 
with large plates of hammered brass. Specimens of pale- 
ozoic rocks. Botany, rushes, grasses, leaf studies again, 
and the thistle. Zoology, the anatomy and natural history 
of the frog ; small skeletons laid in flat position and fast- 
ened to paper ; jaw-bones of the elephant. Pupils actu- 
ally at work in booth making putty maps from a relief 
globe, and sand map of North America from memory. 
(The pupils make their own map boards in the workshop.) 

B and C Classes. Fish, birds, and other small animals, 
dissected and stuffed by pupils ; vital parts of dissected ani- 
mals preserved in different ways : circulatory, nervous and 
digestive systems of the cat ; fine collection of insects pre- 
served in alcohol. 

Training Class. Wonderfully artistic plaster casts made 
by pupils, and second only to the products of the Art Insti- 
tute. Ancient history, in beautiful putty relief maps of 
Greece and Rome. Sectional putty maps, showing Ala- 
bama System and Southern Africa. 

But faint justice can be done, in summing up, to the ex- 
hibit of the Cook County Normal School. But a dim no- 
tion can be gathered from these printed columns of the con- 
tinuity, the grand oneness of the growth it represented, the 
threading through its significant tale of a living philosophy, 
that dreams all things and provides for all things in human 
nature (for, to the thoughtful observer, the moral and emo- 
tional training shines through the mental and manual 
training all along) — that seems to point ahead somewhere 
to a realm of love and wisdom almost heavenly. 

During the three weeks that followed the Ex- 
position its visitors had an opportunity of watch- 
ing some of the conditions under which this sort 



The Coming School. 93 

of growth prospers, and of getting some inkling 
of the psychology upon which it is founded, from 
Col. Parker's own lips at his Summer School for 
teachers. To tell how the teaching was done — 
one knows not where to begin. There are some 
descriptions extant for those curious enough to 
inquire for them. Suffice it here to say that the 
three Rs were taken care of, and to give the fol- 
lowing extract from the author's report of those 
marvelous three weeks of inspiration : 

Strolling through the grounds of the Northwestern Sum- 
mer School in the evening, when gay. Southerners sat talk- 
ing of percepts and concepts, recklessly braving the fate that 
has overtaken Col. Parker's top hair, and sober Northerners 
swung in hammocks, chanting about John Brown's body, 
one was sure to find some of the groups discussing " the 
Colonel." During the last week of the school the follow- 
ing opinions were expressed in those classic shades: 

" Col. Parker is a great soul, and other souls catch some- 
thing of his greatness. " 

" The great thing in Col. Parker's psychology is its beau- 
tiful simplicity." 

" You need to be with him to get the most from him." 

" His great intuitions lead him ; his reason follows and 
arranges for presentation." 

"Col. Parker ought to take a new school every two or 
three years — he so soon induces among his teachers and 
pupils the beautiful desire to work in harmony and be 
mutually helpful." 

" I never understood the meaning of order in education 
until I came here." 

" He reduces teaching to the utmost simplicity and yet 
makes it a subject of higher study than ever before." 

" He gives eyes and voice to conscience." 

" He leads the intellect and inspires the heart," 



94 The Coming School. 

' ' I expected a great deal, but the school has gone beyond 
my anticipations." 

The school closed on Friday, August 5, after a session 
of three weeks, during which most of the pupils had 
worked at their various tasks from 8 A.M. until 5.30 p.m., 
with an intermission of an hour and a half at noon. At 
the last general meeting these resolutions were passed : 

1 ' We, the members of the Northwestern Summer School, 
assembled at Normal Park, Cook Co., 111., representing 
33 States, 4 Territories, and Canada, do adopt the following 
resolutions : 

" 1st : That we heartily endorse the spirit and aim of 
Col. Parker and his able and associate teachers, as exempli- 
fied in the work of the past three weeks. 

" 2d : That our personal gratitude is due to them for the 
higher light thrown upon our work ; for the aid they have 
given us in the search for and the application of truth ; and 
for the added reverence and love for childhood and the new 
enthusiasm in its cause that they have imparted to us." 



PART II -SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

SUBJECTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

ENTER SPECIALIST. 

Children whose parents belong to what is 
called socially the " middle class " are usually 
privileged to a school term long enough to in- 
clude the age at which the growth of a well- 
trained mind begins to demand something of 
scientific classification in its objects of study, and 
more of the analytic in its methods of examina- 
tion ; when, also, in spite of all the efforts of 
previous education to even up the faculties, the 
distinct predominance of some over others makes 
evident the natural drift of the individual and 
should determine to a great extent the chief line 
or lines of effort to be followed by him in the 
future. In the normal education of the average 
child a distinct departure should be made at about 
the age of twelve from the educational plan pur- 
sued under the primary course. The objective 

95 



96 The Coming School. 

knowledge gained in primary study is now to be 
grouped under the heads of zoology, botany, 
mineralogy, physics, chemistry, etc., and the 
pupil is to become a conscious student of 
science. What a pleasant operation this group- 
ing, and what zest it creates for investigations 
that will supply lacking material and explain 
apparent anomalies ! What an eager sifting of 
well-known facts that lie along the border-line 
of two sciences ! His powers of conception 
have been slowly trained until it is not difficult 
to lay a miniature continent before his mental 
vision or to build in his ready consciousness an 
ideal diminutive earth and show him a tiny 
battle going on in one of the tiny valleys ; or a 
waiting mine of precious ore, hiding under some 
unexplored hillside ; or a fairy commerce fleck- 
ing the bright waters ; or a multitude of living 
creatures everywhere moving over the variegated 
lands ; or the rock-engraven evidences of some 
sublime convulsion of nature. His faculties are 
all in full play and he is accustomed to seeing 
clearly as he goes. Only a geographer can 
answer his questions about the lands over which 
the historian now leads his live imagination. 
Only an accomplished physicist can meet his 
inquiries into the nature of material things. 
Henceforth his education should be conducted 
by specialists ; and the one specialty to which 
he most inclines is to receive the lion's share of 
his time and to absorb more and more of his 



The Coming School. 97 

energies until all other pursuits shall have sunk 
to the level of amusements. 

These already accomplished students will enter 
the secondary school with no dread of new " Sub- 
jects " to obstruct their progress, but in its place 
a living zest for all school experiences. How 
well the author remembers the oppression never 
spoken that weighed her down at eleven years 
of age, previous to her entrance upon what was 
then called Fourth Grammar Grade. A big girl 
had told her, " We have to learn grammar in our 
class, and ain't it hard ! " Life assumed very 
much the aspect of a punishment in consequence 
of this simple communication. Nor does she 
forget that she somehow escaped learning the 
horrible definitions, and always parsed by a set 
of little couplets beginning, 

" Three little words, you often see, 
Are articles, a, an, and the." 

This much of immunity saved grammar from 
being quite a deadweight, for parsing by these 
couplets was fun, and through this game some 
of the principles of grammar came to her before 
they had to be conned, which accident made the 
conning a lighter matter. 

The next bugbear was history, and that proved 
all that it was painted. There were no princi- 
ples apparent there, and nothing to be done but 
dry conning, paragraph by paragraph. The 
teacher must have been the wildest sort of a 



98 The Coming School. 

visionary to have attempted any more philo- 
sophical treatment of the "Subject" under the 
" system " then prevalent. Times have amelio- 
rated somewhat, but the destructive principle of 
inversion in the relative importance of funda- 
mental and supplementary educational work 
still remains to insuperably obstruct the growth 
of a better practice. 

" The most engaging of studies is biology," 
said an evolutionist, only a short time since, to a 
grammar teacher. " Yes, I suppose so," was the 
indifferent reply, " for pupils with minds. My 
children don't care whether a rose-bush grows 
from a seed or a thorn, or whether a cat has five 
toes or forty-five." A look of surprise was her 
only answer. The biologist evidently wondered 
whether "her children " were human children. 
Judging by his own he should have expected 
them to take a lively interest in both the ques- 
tions cited. 

Says the historian, "As a source of useful and 
interesting knowledge, history surpasses all other 
subjects. A detailed account of the various 
steps by which a great nation has risen from its 
first, perhaps savage, state to one of wealth, 
power, and civilization, can not help but teach 
some of the bottom principles of philosophy and 
equip for some of the real problems of life." 
We can imagine the answer from the grammar 
teacher — it has been made again and again: "Yes, 
if the student knew anything to begin with." 



The Coming School. '99 

Listen to the expositor of old Earth's char- 
acter and destiny : " The study of geography, 
elementary and scientific, cultivates systemati- 
cally the faculty of imagination, and the products 
of this faculty arouse and develop at every step 
emotions of beauty that culminate in the emo- 
tion of grandeur. No one can study real ge- 
ography without a deeper reverence or higher 
adoration of Him whose thought is expressed 
by the Universe." The grammar teacher looks 
a little faint and murmurs, u I suppose so, if the 
children's minds could only be prepared for 
these conceptions." 

Let the educational scientist approach the 
grammar teacher : 

" There are a few natural principles," says he, 
" that lie at the root of all we can do in educa- 
tion." 

" For instance — ? " 

" For instance, proceed from the known io the 
unknown." 

" Excuse me ! — proceed from the — what? 

" From the known to the — " 

" Where shall I find the known ? " 

" In the pupil's mind." 

" But I haven't time to find the mind, much 
less to find the alleged ' known ' in it." 

Thus does the enthusiastic scientist get his 
ardor dampened at every turn, when he con- 
fronts the leaden stupidity of our grammar 
classes ; while the teacher of these pupils, far 



ioo The Coming School. 

from dreaming of enthusing them with a love 
of study and of work, actually wonders at what 
plodding industry they do possess, and starts 
with delight at every incidental evidence of un- 
quenched mind-growth that breaks the monotone 
of dullness. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE " DIFFICULTIES." 

Is the common school of our day, then, a 
failure ! By no means. The only thing it fails 
to do is to educate. It succeeds in the accom- 
plishment of all its conscious aims. It teaches 
its millions to read, and they read — what ? It 
teaches them to wield the pen with more or less 
legible results, and even turns out some artists 
in chirography. It makes wonderful mathema- 
ticians, as our business men who take the young- 
lightning calculators into their service can amply 
testify. The trouble with these latter is that 
they will as willingly subtract 95 from 59 as they 
will 59 from 95, both on paper and practically, 
in the spending of their salaries. And is not 
this all education ? — dexterity with figures and 
the pen and with printed words, too,, as they 
gallop over the pages of a sensational novel ? 
Unjust ? The grammar schools do teach a little 
common sense and a little taste ? To what 



The Coming School. 101 

do the high schools testify ? What is the testi- 
mony of business men ? What is the testimony 
of the shop windows with their offerings of art 
and literature ? What is the testimony of the 
theatrical advertisements, thrust before willing 
and unwilling eyes alike on the street fences, and 
from which no mother can protect her children ? 
What is the testimony of the stage itself ? 
What is the testimony of the newspaper and the 
police court ? What is the testimony of such 
devoted investigators as Charlotte Smith ? What 
is the testimony of the ballot-box ? What was 
the testimony of the eight-to-seven " council " 
that proclaimed Rutherford B. Hayes President 
of these United States ? Hang our heads as 
Americans ? Why so ? Ours are not the only 
common schools that are producing such shining 
"results." 

No ! The grammar schools, work as bravely 
as they will, cannot make good the inefficient 
work of the primary schools. They cannot com- 
pletely and permanently change the habits, 
moral, mental, and physical, of the pupils that 
come to them from years of repression below 
and stay with each teacher not quite long enough 
to get well acquainted. They cannot change the 
mental habit of blind, deaf, and dumb acceptance 
to one of close and intelligent scrutiny. They 
cannot change the moral habit of selfish competi- 
tion to that of unselfish cooperation. They can- 
not turn accomplished deceit to candor. They 



102 The Coming School. 

cannot inspire the already fallen soul to a grand 
enthusiasm for virtue and honesty. There is 
little hope to be found in the grammar schools. 
There is little that can be done by these schools 
for the generation of spoiled humanity now work- 
ing in their classes. // is too late to. give them 
back what we have taken from them, or to take 
away our fatal gifts of the past by any processes 
at present possible in the schools — and the 
exposure of these hidden wrongs in the Young Idea 
is, after all, but a feeble one. It gives but the 
results in intellect, and leaves us to imagine the 
social and moral effect of all this intellectual hum- 
bug, or to look for it in the real life around us. 

Who is to blame ? Surely not the primary 
teacher. How is she, an inexperienced young 
girl, " educated " in these very schools, and usu- 
ally without professional training, to know what 
she is doing ? All through her school life she 
has recited, not examined. Where now is she to 
get the power to examine the wonderful psycho- 
logical field behind those seventy pairs of bright 
eyes turned upon her ? She does not even dream 
of attempting such an examination. She does 
not even examine the primer containing the 
words she is to teach. She may examine the 
surface of the blackboard and remark that it is 
" lovely and smooth," or " horrid and rough." 
She may examine the desks and exclaim, " I 
hope they won't think my children made those 
fearful scratches." 



The Coming School 103 

Surely not her principal, who has his hands 
full of report books, and can only stop to say to 
her, " You know your work is fundamental. The 
grammar teachers can not do their work unless 
the primary teachers first do theirs thoroughly." 
She replies seriously, " Oh, yes, of course, I 
know that. I must see that every child knows 
every word." The principal is, perhaps, a little 
troubled at her reply, heaves a little sigh, won- 
ders how to " get at " this dense professional 
ignorance, hands her a grade-book and a daily 
programme, invites her to ask him " any ques- 
tions she may find necessary," hurries on with 
his report books, " drops in " once in a while to 
see " how she is getting along," thanks his stars 
she has " good order, at least," and " examines " 
at the end of a month, to see if she has " correctly 
interpreted the course of study and complied 
with its requirements." What more can he do ? 
He cannot teach her class himself. 

Surely not the Superintendents. They scan 
the situation, which is a big one. Politics out- 
side, and inside a natural inversion which is the 
result of politics and tradition, a tide too strong 
for them to stem. They accept what they must, 
and peck a little, here and there, at what they 
can alter. They average everything— ability of 
teachers, number of pupils to a class, age and 
ability or disability of pupils, etc. Then they 
take the amount of knowledge which the public 
demands shall be crammed down those unre- 



104 The Coming School. 

sisting young throats, and measure it off by a 
five months' rule. What more can they do ? 
They can not teach the children themselves. 
They can not even teach the teachers. They 
can not apportion the salaries. They can not 
put the grammar teachers into the primary de- 
partments. They sympathize with the princi- 
pals, for under such a system the question of 
discipline is a pressing and an oppressing one. 
They sympathize with the teachers, who must 
either accept promotions to these grammar 
classes, where spoiled young America awaits 
their futile efforts, or get along forever on the 
pittance of an apprentice below. They sympa- 
thize, but they can* not help. And thus, genera- 
tion after generation of tender humanity goes 
through the mill and comes out calloused ; and 
the fluttering dress of the proud girl-graduate, 
and the broadcloth coat of her merchant papa, 
and the newspaper gossip of the ferry-boat, and 
the small talk and empty raillery of the parlor, 
hide the falseness of it all. Oh, Humanity ! to 
think of thy sublime possibilities, and then com- 
pare them with this and worse ! 

A few teachers are at work, raising a mur- 
mur — they can do little more. A few publishers 
are at work upon offerings of u good literature 
for children." A great many bookmakers are 
at work, trying to make money out of the crying 
needs of the schools. But what is the citizen 
and taxpayer doing? How much encourage- 



The Coming School. 105 

ment does educational literature get from him ? 
What pains is he taking to inform himself as to 
the condition of the schools ? To what extent 
is he insisting that they shall be placed in trust- 
worthy hands ? 

How to find out what teaching should be? 
Read Quincy Methods, E. L. Kellogg & Co. Read 
How to Study Geography, published by Francis 
W. Parker, Englewood, 111. Look into the Del- 
sarte treatment of expression. Visit the normal 
schools. Study kindergarten—every intelligent 
mother should do that. 

In the meantime accept, if you will, the hints 
herein offered, always understanding that noth- 
ing between the covers of this book is suggested 
as final, except two great principles : A, the 
order of means in education — 1st Objects, 2d 
Subjects, 3d Classics or Pursuits ; B, the 
order of importance of these means and the 
diminishing difficulty in their use. 

As regards methods, the great Parker, seeing 
the necessity of destroying the method-worship 
of the Formalist, exclaims, " There are no 
methods ! " Certainly, with a live teacher, the 
methods of one year are seldom the methods of 
the next. The Coming School will be a thing 
of growth, day by day nearing nature in its 
methods. The examples given here are merely 
intended as illustrations of teaching as distin- 
guished from cram, with the assumption that 
teaching will prevail in the Coming School. 



106 The Coming School, 

CHAPTER III. 

HOW IT WILL BE DONE. 

" Early non-attention makes dreamers," said 
Superintendent W. L. F. Sanders, in a recent ad- 
dress before the Michigan State Teachers' Asso- 
ciation, and doubtless went on to show the in- 
jurious effects in later life of a bad mental habit 
fostered in early childhood. One can not pick 
up any standard treatise on general education 
without finding something to quote in an argu- 
ment for the paramount importance of primary 
teaching. A friend and colaborer quotes from 
Spencer's Sociology the following passage to ex- 
plain the situation, as Miss Le Row finds it : 

" Never having studied psychology, the peda- 
gogue has but the dimmest notion of his pupil's 
mind, and, thinking of the undeveloped intellect 
as though it had ideas which only the developed 
intellect can have, he presents it with utterly 
incomprehensible facts — generalizations before 
there exist in it the things to be generalized, and 
abstractions while there are none of the concrete 
experiences from which such abstractions are 
derived, so causing bewilderment and an appear- 
ance of stupidity." 

This fully explains the situation, except in so 
far as it lays the blame on the individual peda- 
gogue. A teacher, stationed anywhere along the 



The Coming School. 107 

line to do a given part of the work mapped out 
in a system of schools, has a right to assume that 
her pupils' minds have been developed to that 
point — have been afforded the experiences from 
which she is to derive abstractions and have been 
stored with the necessary things to be general- 
ized. If this has not been done it is the fault of 
the system, not that of the individual teacher. 
Such a state of things is a bequeathal from a mis- 
taken past. 

Reading will not have to be " taught " in the 
Secondary School, but among the Subjects upon 
which the powers of classification are exercised 
will be language and literature. Pupils who 
have for nine or ten years, in the kindergarten 
and Primary School, examined into the nature 
of things, will find little difficulty in determining 
the nature of words. All these long years of 
practice in correct speech will be another line of 
preparation for them. Parsing and grammatical 
analysis will be a sort of intellectual play, through 
which they will constantly come into the con- 
scious possession of laws that they " knew be- 
fore, but didn't know they knew." In connec- 
tion with their study of objects they have read 
in every department of literature. It will be a 
pleasant exercise of the faculty, of " putting to 
rights," now, to separate history from fiction, 
dramatic from scientific writings, descriptive 
from narrative prose, epic from lyric poetry, 
essays from anecdotes, the humorous from the 



1 08 The Coming School 

pathetic in literature. Current literature will be 
treated in the form of book reviews, which will 
be a part of the " composition work," and in 
which each pupil will give his classmates in out- 
line the drift and sentiment of the last book that 
has pleased him, with choice extracts. Under 
the head of reading will come topics of the day 
as treated in the newspapers and magazines, 
managed, perhaps, somewhat as they are in Mr. 
Gleason's school, Newark. In one of his higher 
classes a scrap-book hangs on the wall, into 
which pupils paste cuttings from the news 
column. Sometimes a special subject is assigned 
for a day's attention. Bulgaria, Beecher, and 
Bancroft were among those upon which the 
pupils seemed most plentifully informed. Pupils 
coming into the room before the regular time 
for study lift the leaves of this book and find 
something to think about. 

Arithmetic, pretty well completed in the 
Primary School, will here be put into some sort 
of arrangement by the pupils themselves. They 
will name the different departments of com- 
mercial arithmetic, and perhaps each pupil will 
write what might be adopted as the skeleton of 
a text-book. At the same time, continued prac- 
tice in the four fundamental rules will strengthen 
the faculty of calculation, and some higher 
applications of mathematics will be made in con- 
nection with geography, astronomy, etc. 

The specialist in physics, taking a class of 



The Coming School. 109 

pupils from the well-taught Primary School, will 
probably begin with a course of lessons of which 
the following is suggested as a sample : 

Capillary Attraction. Teacher: What is 
this, children ? 

Pupils: A hair. 

T. Would you like to call it a capillus ? (writ- 
ing.) 

P. (Laughing.) Not every day. 

T. Well, shall we give it that for a Sunday 
name ? That is its name in the Latin language. 

P. Oh, yes, if it's Latin. 

T. Well, then, I am going to call everything 
strictly pertaining to the hair capillary. (Writ- 
ing.) James, you may pass your fingers down 
the capillary surface. Any one who wants to 
may pull a capillus from his own head and 
find the capillary root. Well, Jane, what have 
you on your mind ? 

Jane: There are little capillary tubes in ani- 
mals and plants. We have all examined them. 

Why are they called capillary tubes ? 

Pupils: Because they are like hairs. Because 
they are fine and hollow. 

T. Is a hair hollow ? 

P. Yes, ma'am. 

T. We will come back to the capillus soon. 
Please tell me what will happen if I dip this 
wick into the oil ? 

P. The oil will run up into the wick. 



no The Coming School. 

T. What will happen if I dip the corner of 
this blotter into this drop of ink. 

P. The blotter will suck up the ink. 

T. Watch it. Now I have some vinegar. 
Watch what I do. (Silence until the experiment 
is completed.) What did I do ? 

Pupils: You put washing-blue into the vine- 
gar and then dipped a piece of chalk into it. 

Teacher: Why did I blue the vinegar? 

P. So that we could see it run up into the chalk. 

T. What have I here ? 

P. A cup of water, a napkin, and a pan. 

T. What have I done ? 

P. You have set the cup in the pan, dipped a 
corner of the napkin into the water, and let the 
rest hang over outside the cup. 

T. What is happening ? 

P. The water is soaking up the napkin till it 
gets to the edge of the cup. Then it turns and 
runs down into the pan. 

T. What will happen to this sponge if I set it 
in the pan ? 

P. It will drink up some of the water. 

T. Tell of some similarity in the material used 
in all these experiments. 

P. You used a liquid in every case. 

Another pupil: You used something porous 
every time. 

T. All substances are porous. 

P. Well, the pores were large enough to take 
the water. 



The Coming School. m 

T. Why do liquids run even upward into 
these porous substances ? 

P. The porous substances attract them. 

T. If I dip this slate pencil into the water, will 
any cling to it ? 

P. Yes, ma'am. The outside will be wet. 

T. The water clings to the outside as to a 
wall. Is that true of the other substances ? 

P. Yes, only there are a great many little 
inside walls, too. 

T. Very good. But the water does not climb 
up the outside wall as it does inside. 

P. Inside it always has two walls to climb by, 
like a chimney-sweep going up a chimney. 

T. (Smiling.) You make the water a very 
determined climber. Is there any other expla- 
nation ? 

Another pupil. (Speaking very carefully:) 
The little particles of water outside have the 
substance only on one side of them. Those 
inside have the substance all around them and 
the pull is stronger. 

T. Yes, the pull must be stronger, of course. 
That helps me to understand the rising of the 
liquid through those little pores. Now give me 
another word for pull. 

P. The attraction is stronger. 

T. What shall we call this kind of attraction? 

Pupil (who happens to know): Capillary at- 
traction. 

T. Shall we call it capillary attraction ? 



H2 The Coming School. 

Pupil: No, ma'am. The sponge is not hair. 
The pores are not tubes. 

T. Can you see any similarity between these 
pores and the hollow in a hair ? 

Pupil (slowly): Some of the pores are very 
fine. Some of the inside surfaces are very near 
together. 

T. Well, the men who named this form of at- 
traction thought there was enough similarity to 
give it that name ; so, if you want to talk about 
it and be understood you will have to call it 
Capillary Attraction. You may write from two 
to three pages on the nature of capillary attrac- 
tion and the uses man makes of it. 

The "composition " thus produced will prob- 
ably afford little or no ammunition for Miss 
Le Row, should she wish to prepare another 
comedy of errors — or tragedy of " results." 
Such compositions will doubtless be filed and 
their material rearranged under the heads of 
the sciences by the pupil, from time to time, as 
the various lines of study become more clearly 
differentiated in his mind. 



The Coming School. 113 



CHAPTER IV. 

WHERE IT IS DONE. 

The following lesson, given by Miss Page at 
the State Normal School of Connecticut, may 
well be afforded a place in this outline of the 
Coming School : 

The subject for the day was hydrostatic pres- 
sure. Miss Page handed a small object to her 
nearest pupil, with the direction, " Look at it 
once and pass it on." The object quickly made 
the circuit of the class and returned to the 
teacher's hand. Then the catechism com- 
menced. 

Mary, what did you see ? 

I saw two holes — 

You can not see holes, my dear, but only the 
substance that surrounds them. Lucy. 

I saw a cup with two small holes in it. 

Jennie, will you give me a more complete and 
definite answer ? 

I saw a tin cup with two little holes in the sides 
opposite to each other. 

Rosa, what am I doing ? 

You are pouring water into the cup. 

Come close, children, and observe carefully. 
Be seated again. What did I do ? Emma. 

The water came — 

Josephine, what did I do ? 



ii4 The Coming School. 

You pressed your hand on the water and it — 

That will do. I asked you but one question. 
Amelia, tell me in your way what I did. 

You pressed the water down with your hand. 

What name is there for the action of my hand 
on the water? My hand exerted a — 

Pressure ! ejaculated some one. (The word 
had evidently been developed in some former 
lesson.) 

In what direction was the pressure ? 

Downward. 

Then we may call it a — 

Downward pressure. 

Very well, as a result of this downward pres- 
sure, Julia, what did you see ? 

I saw the water come out of the two little holes 
in the sides. 

How did it come out ? 

It came out suddenly. 

Is there not one word to express coming out 
suddenly — with water ? 

It squirted out. 

That expresses it, but a better word is spirted. 
What made the water spirt out ? 

Because you pressed it. 

But I did not touch that part of the water that 
came out. 

The water that you pressed down pressed it out. 

Because of the downward pressure of my hand, 
then, another pressure was exerted. In, what 
direction ? 



The Coming School. 115 

No answer. 

In what direction was the water pressed out 
of the holes, downward, sidewise, upward — 

Sidewise ! 

Then we may call that pressure a — 

A sidewise pressure. 

Then the downward pressure became a — 

A sidewise pressure. 

Ethel, say that in your way. 

The downward pressure became a sidewise 
pressure. 

Mary, can you not vary the expression ? 

The downward was changed to a sidewise 
pressure. 

Sarah, what do you see ? 

I see a glass funnel with a large glass tube. 

Jennie, will you complete the description ? 

The glass tube is bent near the end. 

What am I doing ? 

You are pouring water into the funnel. 

What do you see ? 

The water spirting up out of the bent end like 
a fountain. 

What is making it do that ? 

The water that you pour in pushes it out. 

Sarah, do you see any pressure ? 

Yes, ma'am. 

What kind ? 

An upward pressure. 

Exerted by what ? 

By the water that you pour in. 



n6 The Coming School. 

In what direction does the water move in order 
to exert an upward pressure at the latter end ? 

Downward. 

Then a downward pressure may become an — 

Upward pressure. 

Carrie, state that for me. 

A downward pressure may become an upward 
pressure. 

Ethel, what do you see ? 

I see a glass tube. 

Tell me more about it. 

It is bent like the letter u. 

Then who will give it a name that will indi- 
cate its shape ? 

It is a u-shaped glass tube. 

What am I doing ? 

You are pouring water into the tube. 

(Miss Page resisted the temptation, if she felt 
it, to digress and seize this beautiful opportu- 
nity of showing that water seeks its level. In a 
more rambling discussion this would have been 
a golden chance, but at present her purpose was 
clearly defined and firmly adhered to, and the 
unity of the lesson preserved in all its rounded 
beauty.) 

Florence, what do you see ? 

I see a wooden cylinder. 

What am I doing ? 

You are moving the wooden cylinder up and 
down in the glass tube. 

Do you know any name for a solid cylinder 



The Coming School. 117 

that fits a hollow one and moves back and forth 
in it, so ? No ? We will call it a piston. This 
is how it is written. What do we call it, class ? 

A piston. 

What is the piston doing ? 

It is pressing the water down. 

It is exerting what kind of a pressure ? 

A downward pressure. 

In which side of the tube ?— look at it with 
my eyes. 

In the right side of the tube. 

Belle, do you see any change of pressure ? 

There is an upward pressure in the left side. 

Is the downward pressure in this case changed 
immediately to an upward pressure? Look 
carefully. 

It has to go around the curve at the bottom. 

Make a line on the blackboard to show the 
direction of the pressure there. 

(A pupil drew a curve, well representing all 
the changes in direction between the two vertical 
lines of pressure.) 

I want you to show me the direction of the 
pressure just here, said Miss Page, touching the 
bottom of the tube. 

(Another pupil drew a straight line from left 
to right.) 

What kind of a pressure is it that pushes in 
that direction ? 

A sidewise pressure. 

Then we have a downward pressure changed 



u8 The Coming School. 

first to a — (pointing to the bottom of the 
tube.) 

A sidewise pressure. 
And that, in turn, changed to an — 
An upward pressure. 

Sarah, tell me, in as few words as you can, 
what you saw in the first experiment (holding 
up the tin cup) ? 

I saw a downward pres- 
sure changed to a sidewise 
pressure. 

Mabel, what did you see 
in the second experiment 
(holding up the funnel with 
the long, bent tube)? 

I saw a downward pres- 
sure changed to an upward. 
Carrie, what did you see 
in the last experiment ? 
I saw a downward changed to a sidewise and 
then to an upward pressure. 

Could these changes have been produced in a 
solid substance, like wood, or is it necessary to 
use a liquid, like water ? 
You have to have water. 

Yes, or some other liquid. Now turn your at- 
tention to what I have drawn here and imagine 
these little circles to be the tinest particles of 
water that you can think of, and that a pressure 
is exerted in the direction of the arrow upon i. 
What kind of a pressure is it? 




The Coming School. 



119 



A downward pressure. 

No. i, moving downward, will press No. 2 in 
what direction ? 

Sidewise. 

To the left or to the right ? 

To the right. 

I will indicate the direction of that pressure 
with an arrow. In what direction will No. 3 
move ? 

To the left. 

And No. 4 ? 

Upward. 

What kind of a pressure 
shall we call that ? 

An upward pressure. 

Which way will No. 5 
move ? **~~ 

Downward. 

Clara, tell me, in a gen- 
eral way, what may become 
of any given pressure on a 
liquid. 

It may be turned to any other kind of a pres- 
sure. 

(After a few more attempts the following ex- 
pression of a well-known law was elicited and 
written on the board : Pressure on liquids may 
be communicated in different directions.} 

Class, tell me what you see. 

1. I see a pan, the shape of a frying-pan. 

2. It is covered tightly with India rubber. 




l2o The Coming School. 

3. There is a long rubber tube fastened to the 
handle, and a funnel at the other end of the 
tube. 

What am I doing ? 

You are pouring water into the funnel. 

Watch for any change you may see. 

The rubber is rounding up. 

Mary, will you get the dictionary ? Place it 
on the rubber, to keep it down. What am I 
doing, class ? 

You are still pouring water into the funnel. 

Do you see any change ? 

The dictionary is rising. 

Balance it evenly, Mary. Class, what is lift- 
ing the dictionary ? 

The water. 

What water ? 

The water in the tube. 

Do you think the water in the tube weighs as 
much as the dictionary ? 

No, ma'am. 

And yet it lifts it. Since a column of water 
can exert pressure enough to lift more than its 
own weight, try to think of some useful machine 
that might be made on that principle. 

Several suggestions were made, and then Miss 
Page told her class of the machines used to 
press cotton, hay, etc., and that the strength of 
cables is sometimes tested by this force. 

Comment upon this admirably conducted les- 
son would be an affront alike to the genius of 



The Coming School. t2t 

the teacher and to the critical appreciation of 
the reader. Those teachers who would travel 
toward the ideal here reached must study the 
art of questioning in the lessons of Socrates and 
his disciples, ancient and modern ; and in the 
close analysis of subjects, with regard to the 
order in which their details should enter the 
mind if clear perceptions are to be gained. 
The above report can give no idea of the zest 
and pleasure in the lesson, lent, in part, by the 
teacher's brisk yet winning manner. 

The following is taken from a report by the 
author of some observations in the Cook 
County Normal School, Englewood, 111. : 

No one who has not assisted at a dissection 
can have any realization of the beauty of the 
animal structure. Beauty skin-deep ! — the skin 
but hides the greater beauty beneath it. That 
removed, we begin to feel how fearfully and 
wonderfully made is this little house of flesh 
from which the mystic Ego has departed. What 
if it is but a zzk-Ego that is gone — but a feline 
form that lies before you in all its helplessness ? 
Is what has departed from it any easier to ex- 
plain than the Ego that directs the dissecting 
tool? Is the house of flesh less perfectly 
adapted in all its parts to the needs of its 
habitant than your own ? Is this structure less 
wonderful in its complexity, less admirable in 
its economy, less beautiful in its harmony, less 



122 The Coming School. 

prompt and sure in its action ? Could you take 
that passive thing apart and put it together 
again? Not by all the arts known to man. 
Such is its compactness, and yet no part binds 
on another, but all move without friction. Could 
you paint those silken tissues, those rounded 
organs, with the rosy hues of health, some paler, 
some ruddier ? 

This is the place to learn what the doctors 
mean by " a beautiful nerve." This is the place 
to contrast the loveliness of health with the 
hideousness of disease. This is the place for 
the novice to learn how a cultivated disgust may 
be suddenly changed to an enthusiasm of admira- 
tion. This is the place for the careless to be- 
come conscious of the sacredness of life. 

Beauty only skin-deep ! Why, henceforth 
every piece of nice, fresh meat in a butcher's 
window must be a thing of beauty. Why ? 
Because of the beautiful whole it brings to mind. 
Because its fibres lead you down to tendon and 
bone and articulated skeleton, and upward to 
feeding arteries and pulsing heart and expand- 
ing lungs and thinking brain. 

Yes, expanding lungs. Here is an oppor- 
tunity for an object lesson in breathing, infi- 
nitely more valuable than any the outward form 
could give. 

The teacher takes her little blow-pipe, and, 
inserting one end in an opening in the wind- 
pipe, inflates the lungs. Has the cat come to 



The Coming School. 123 

life? What a start you give, as the leaf -like 
lobes of the lung curl up and swell with the 
entering breath. 

You get over your surprise in a moment and 
watch the filling out of every extremity as the 
breath trickles through the sponge, and realize 
that so should the life-giving oxygen find its 
way to the remotest corner of your own lungs. 

Could the wrong of tight lacing and un- 
healthy attitudes, of nicotine and alcoholism, be 
taught by ocular demonstration, early enough in 
life, the doctors and the criminal lawyers would 
have less to do. Perhaps this can not be per- 
fectly done ; but the mistake we make is in 
pouring so many empty words into the ear of 
youth, in our attempts to evolve changing con- 
cepts from original concepts that never had any 
existence in the minds appealed to. We describe 
a healthy stomach — a healthy lung — no use. We 
show pictures, plaster casts — still the concept 
we build is made of color and form alone. 
There is nothing in it of nerve and blood and 
quivering mobility — no suggestion of life. Satis- 
fied with this sham beginning, we proceed to 
explain the processes of abuse and consequent 
disease. Our eloquence may touch the emo- 
tional nature, may rouse some vague fear of 
vaguer consequences, may touch the moral sense 
dimly, or station some unseen bugaboo behind 
the listener, to cast its hideous shadow over his 
shoulder and terrify him into conformity to the 



124 The Coming School. 

rules of health. But nothing is real in it all — 
nothing assumes its normality before his strained 
mental vision. 

Show him a healthy stomach, be it only that 
of a cat ; dissect it " before his very eyes," or 
better still, allow him to do so himself ; explain 
its walls, their functions, their action, their 
means of sustenance, their needs and dangers, 
while the tissues are there, while the arteries 
can be seen and the folds and fibers examined. 
Then, when, some day long afterward, perhaps, 
you want to talk about alcoholism, you can get 
out your colored drawings and your manikins 
and have them mean something to him. A vivid 
concept long since planted in his mind is there 
as a basis for your amplification. You tell of 
the succeeding stages of inflammation, and he 
sees the blood flow faster and faster through 
the arteries and the fever gather in spots. Give 
the pupil something real to start ivith. 

The lungs of the cat afforded the means of a 
very effective lesson on the action of the dia- 
phragm. Perhaps the actual questions and 
answers of teacher and pupils will tell the story 
best : 

Teacher. What do you see ? 

Third Pupil (two having failed to give com- 
plete answers). I see a glass bottle with the 
bottom knocked off and the end made air-tight 
with a piece of rubber. The bottle is a broad 
one and the neck is corked. Through the cork 



The Coming School. 1*5 

are passed two glass tubes ; one short and open 
at both ends — the other long and open at the 
outer end only. Inside the bottle, the long glass 
tube is fitted into the windpipe of the cat, which 
is tied tightly about the tube. From this hang 
the lungs of the cat, which you took from the 
body for use in this experiment. 

Teacher. What am I doing ? 

Pupil. You are inflating the lungs by blowing 
air into them through the long tube. 

Teacher. What am I doing now ? 

Pupil. You are inflating the lungs as before, 
and, at the same time, closing the short tube 
with your finger. 

Teacher. What change do you see in the 
result ? 

Pupil. The rubber bulges out. 

Teacher. Why does that happen ? 

Pupil. Because, by increasing the size of the 
lungs, you diminish the air space in the bottle, 
and the air presses against the rubber. 

Teacher. What am I doing now ? 

Pupil. You are closing the small tube and 
pulling the rubber in and out. 

Teacher. What effect do you see ? 

Pupil. The lungs contract and expand. 

Teacher. Explain why. 

Pupil. When you increase the air space in the 
bottle the outer air rushes through the tube into 
the lungs to equalize the inward and outward 
atmospheric pressure. When you diminish the 



126 The Coming School. 

air space in the bottle the air is driven out of the 
lungs by the compression of the air around them. 

Teacher. What am I doing now ? 

Pupil. You are moving the rubber in and out, 
leaving both tubes open. 

Teacher. Any change in the result ? 

Pupil. The lungs expand, but not so fully. 

Teacher. Why not so fully ? 

Pupil. Because the increased space in the 
bottle is filled partly through the short tube. 

Teacher. W T hat membrane in the body will the 
rubber serve to illustrate ? 

Pupil. The diaphragm. 

Another Pupil. Why do the lungs contract as 
soon as they are let alone, without any outer 
pressure ? 

Teacher. Who sees ? 

Pupil. The outer pressure of the whole atmos- 
phere is greater than the inner pressure. 

Another Pupil. No, the atmospheric pressure 
is equal within and without. 

Another. It is the elasticity of the membrane, 
or the weight of the falling tissue, or both com- 
bined, that expel the air. 

Teacher. Decide for yourselves. 

The above lesson was given by Mrs. Straight, 
who is now teaching in the High Normal School 
at Tokio, Japan, on a salary of three thousand 
dollars a year. Will the Coming School establish 
itself in Japan before it does in America ? 



The Coming School. 127 

CHAPTER V. 

THE " ALLEGED KNOWN." 

Will the Coming School have a Course of 
Study ? 

Since education is to become more and more 
an art it will surely continue to follow some out- 
lined plan. As teachers gain in skill and free- 
dom, courses of study will lose in peremptory 
detail ; but they will continue to serve as gen- 
eral guides and helpers. The average course of 
study at present in use is far ahead in theory 
of the practice under its despotic sway. The 
trouble is that the best course of study gets into 
its own way through the fatuitous organisation 
of the schools for which it is provided. Courses 
of study are arranged with a view to the ability 
and needs of an average pupil, pursuing his stud- 
ies continuously, under one intelligent teacher, 
or under one teacher for each separate branch of 
tuition. It is easy to imagine the compiler of a 
Course of Study at his desk, with technical books 
of reference around him, with the most familiarly 
quoted " laws of education " ever present to his 
consciousness, shedding their corrective light 
fitfully upon the arrangement of knowledge 
slowly growing under his careful pen. We can 
see the knitted brow, and read the conscientious 
thought in his eyes as he leans back in his chair, 



128 The Coming School. 

pausing to measure the value of some doubt by 
the application of some psychological principle. 
At last the difficult work is done. With some 
fear and trembling, and yet with no small meas- 
ure of tentative satisfaction, the manual is put 
forth which is to become, for an indefinite period, 
the law of dozens, perhaps hundreds of teachers. 
The compiler feels that he has done his duty in 
raising this manual to the topmost point that it 
is at present safe to occupy. Now, if the teach- 
ers will but do their duty ! But alas ! how 
much this " if " contains — or rather, another if, 
which must supplant it in the mind of the ob- 
server. If the teachers could but work continu- 
ously, as the success of this manual requires ! 

In the first place, the manual is somewhat de- 
spoiled of its unity before the teachers see it. 
For division of labor, it has been cut up into 
" grades." The imaginary pupil who lived in the 
mind of the compiler, becoming a real pupil, finds 
his journeyings up the hill of knowledge less 
smooth and continuous. He must change guides 
with every hundred feet of elevation, and finds 
that it takes much of his time to get acquainted 
at each fresh starting-point. As he is trained to 
look through the glasses of these guides, and 
these glasses vary somewhat, there is a continual 
strangeness spread over the scene. 

The real teacher, too, encounters various ob- 
structions in the endeavor to preserve the beau- 
tiful oneness of the Course of Study. The fre- 



The Coming School. 129 

quent change of classes would seem to involve 
for her the same necessity of spending much 
time in getting acquainted ; but with her dwells 
ever the realization that time must not be spent 
in this way. Time was meant for work ; and 
work, as specifically allotted to the grade, in 
months, weeks, and days, must begin with the 
entrance of the new pupils into the class. She 
must proceed on the double and doubly errone- 
ous assumption that all pupils are like that aver- 
age one that strolled toward college through the 
imagination of the compiler, and that the teach- 
ers below her have worked as one, and that one 
a counterpart of herself. " Proceed from the 
known to the unknown," say all the sages, and she 
proceeds, looking not into the consciousness of 
her pupils for the basic " known," but finding it 
in the Course of Study, where it is so beautifully 
compacted and expressed in plain print, page 
after page. She finds, after a while, that what de- 
pends on drill jogs on serenely, but what de- 
pends on the understanding meets with some un- 
seen resistance. She finally concludes that her 
pupils " didn't know what they ought to have 
known when they came to her ; but never mind, 
they have got to know this grade ! " And she 
pounds it in. Of course, at the end of the term 
they know it ; but, somehow, succeeding teach- 
ers fail to find it out. 

If a nabob owned a rare, exotic plant, he 
would probably give it in charge, during its 



130 The Coming School 

pristine tenderness, of the best gardener he could 
find. If, thereafter, it became necessary to 
change gardeners every six months, he would 
see to it that each new gardener should arrive 
two or three weeks before the old one's term ex- 
pired, so that the two should tend the precious 
thing together, day by day, for a while, and have 
an opportunity of harmonizing their theories, 
thus securing for it some thoughtful continuity 
of treatment. Obviously, a human soul is not 
worthy of such expensive care, or there is no 
nabob to provide it. In the Coming School, how- 
ever, it is possible that teachers may keep their 
classes longer ; and that the increased ability 
and freedom of instructors, their larger profes- 
sional intercourse, their more judicious appoint- 
ment, according to special aptitude, the teach- 
ing of "subjects" by specialists, and, more 
than all, the superior provision for the lower 
grades, will combine to ensure a smoother con- 
nection between the successive stages of study. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EFFECTS PAST AND PRESENT. 

Let me close Part II. with a little bit of personal 
history : 

Once a little boy, three years of age, seeing 
that his big brother did not like school, vowed 



The Coining School. 131 

he would never learn to read, no one should 
teach him to read, and if he did learn to read he 
wouldn't read anyway ! He remained practically 
true to these early vows. The school reader 
was forced upon him. Otherwise he read noth- 
ing but his Boy's Own Book and Golden Days. 
He was a stubborn little fellow, and the System 
made him more so. The principal thing that 
distinguished his school course was his deter- 
mination not to learn. Home was made a tor- 
ment by the effort to compel his attention to 
so-called study. By putting him on his honor, 
however, and sundry other tricks, he was induced 
to do more or less of the conning. When free 
from the hated school thraldom he roamed the 
woods and meadows, and there got an education 
which enabled him to assimilate some of the 
"knowledge " offered him at school, and, years 
afterward, to get more. 

Not that his school was a bad one, as schools 
went. His teachers were all conscientious, hard 
workers, and did their level best for him, under 
the system, so that, in spite of his own efforts to 
the contrary, he graduated at fifteen. He went 
into a New York business house, and his 
employer said, " These teachers don't know how 
to teach ! " How unjust, that the whole obloquy 
of a bad system should be heaped upon the very 
workers who prevent it from being worse ! 

His employer trained him, and a very pleasant 
relationship sprang up, which lasted six years. 



132 The Coming School. 

During this time he continued his education in 
the woods, and came to several conclusions : i, 
our civilization is a hoax ; 2, education (that of 
the schools, he meant, for he did not know the 
meaning of the word) is a refined cruelty ; 3, 
aspiration is the chief curse of man. It was impos- 
sible to shake his convictions, for he had seen 
but one side of the picture. He was destined 
to see the other side. In September, 1887, he 
went to the Cook County Normal School as a 
pupil. The following June he wrote a letter 
from which this is an extract ; referring to the 
closing of school for the summer vacation : 

" And so our organism disintegrates, each 
atom throbbing with that intense spirit of poetry 
that has displaced the choppy prose of Sep- 
tember last. And so the slow old wheel shall 
grind another year and another, until all too 
soon the great miller shall cease his work and 
the mill will stop. But the deep-purposed spirit 
here brewed shall steal forth over the land, 
spreading and broadening like the newly-loosed 
spring that moistens the desert." 

Young pupils of other normal schools are wont 
to indulge in such sentimental conges as this ; but 
nowhere else has the same spirit been " brewed " 
in the hearts of more than 300 teachers, old and 
young, from all parts of the Union and Canada, 
at a three weeks' Summer School. This was done 
in 1887, at Normal Park, Chicago, by Col. Fran- 
cis W. Parker, The enthusiasm among those 



The Coming School. 133 

cultured students, so briefly brought under the 
personal tuition of the greatest educational 
leader of the day, was a thing sublime. They 
came in different minds — they went with 
one. His preaching alone would have worked 
a magnificent result with these conscientious 
thinkers, but added to the deep philosophy he 
brought within their narrowest compass, his 
practice lay before them, and human growth, 
under his guidance, could be observed like the 
opening of a chrysalis. Fear for those children's 
futures, when character, with all its capabilities 
of goodness and energy, was being so ably fos- 
tered ? The most timorous of conservatives 
was satisfied. The most stubborn formalist was 
silenced. The only doubt expressed itself thus : 
"If we had such teachers as these, how we might 
revolutionize systems !" Those teachers were 
at least partially trained and wholly unified by 
Parker ; and when all that he is destined to 
train shall have carried his influence over our 
land, a goodly crop of educational reform will 
be seen springing up. His power is least in large 
cities, where prudence most feels the danger of 
sudden changes. But, by a recent course of 
lectures on " The Pedagogical Value of Expres- 
sion," he made a profound impression, even in 
New York. Those lectures were ably reported 
in the New York School Journal, by Miss E. L. 
Benedict, and there the curious may find them 
on file. 



PART III.— TERTIARY EDUCATION. 



CLASSICS. 



The children of more than average prosperity 
are enabled to prolong their school term not only 
beyond the period of rudimentary education, but 
also beyond that second period, when the rich 
stores of the mind are examined, supplemented, 
and set in order by the processes of scientific 
study, and the student learns to " know that he 
knows " and to follow definite lines of research. 
He now becomes a conscious student of ethics, 
philosophy, and the fine arts, including litera- 
ture. The aesthetic in his make-up having been 
fed from the first by all his contact with the 
exquisite harmonies of nature, now springs into 
conscious life and receives direct culture. 
Whether it is just that this super-education, as 
it may well be called by the work-a-day world 
below, should be given at public expense is not 
a question to be discussed at length here. " To 
them that have, more shall be given," seems a 
law of destiny, if not of justice. A prudent 

*34 



The Coming School. 135 

public, having charge of its own purse-strings, 
would probably say " Wait till we can afford it. 
Our poor are not yet fully provided with kinder- 
gartens, and we dare not neglect them." 

The Tertiary School of the future, whether it 
be supported by public or private funds, whether 
it be called academy, college, or university, will 
be a sort of modernized Athens. The beautiful 
halls and gardens, rising before one's mental 
vision, cause a thrill of envy of those favored 
youths and maidens, walking with graceful, leis- 
urely steps, talking in low enthused tones, call 
ing up at will the shades of Zeno and Epicurus, 
of Homer and Virgil, of Plato and Socrates, to 
walk beside them and enter with them into the 
fascinating subtleties of metaphysical debate. 
Oh, that the fate of Athens may not overtake 
these refined analysts ! That they may not get 
so lost in metaphysics as to neglect that " eter- 
nal vigilance " which is the price of character as 
of all earthly possessions !- — that they may add 
to the exquisite culture of the Greeks that prac- 
tical modern wisdom that teaches the sorrow of 
idleness, the danger of immunity from daily 
labor, the necessity of a serious aim in a human 
life, the fatality that follows the follower of fancies. 

If the primary and secondary schools have done 
their best, all this has been more or less fully real- 
ized through observation, and a life without effort 
at fruition will have its terrors for these well- 
taught students. Besides, the duty of giving an 



136 The Coming School. 

equivalent has been acknowledged from early 
childhood. They know that no one has a right 
to live that does not in some way earn his living. 
Not that every one must card buttons ! (Even 
the less accomplished, but completely human 
graduates of the primary schools will do with 
their hands only such drudgery as they can not 
get machinery to do, and will spend the rest of 
their time in human recreation and study.) The 
musician gratifies his passion and at the same 
time gives to the world the price of his subsist- 
ence. He does both, however, through hard 
labor. The painter, sculptor, and poet do the 
same. The thinker, in order to have a right to 
his subsistence, must give his thought to the 
world. To do this in an earnest spirit and with 
full effect means labor. 

So that even these bright, these favored ones 
admitted to the tertiary school will not be mere 
butterflies of thought, but producers of enjoy- 
ment and guidance for others. 

Says the Popular Science Monthly, after a dis- 
sertation on some of the stultifying processes of 
the common school : 

" When at last he is allowed to take up the 
study of nature, at the wrong end of his school 
course, what wonder that the student sits with 
folded hands, waiting to be told facts to commit 
to memory, that he can not realize what a law 
is, and does not know how to use his reason in 
obtaining knowledge ? " 



The Coming School. 137 

The graduate of the Coming School will real- 
ize what a law is, will know how to use his rea- 
son in obtaining knowledge, and will not dream 
of sitting with folded hands while there is any- 
thing to study or to do. " Waiting to be told " 
is something he does not know much about ; he 
is too much in the habit of finding out for him- 
self. The faculty receive him without terror of 
his possible mental paralysis, test his powers of 
independent research, and perhaps give him to 
the care of some stronger student, who teaches 
himself and his pupil at the same time, referring 
to the master only when the library fails him and 
he runs across " one of those things no fellah 
can ever find out." 

The professors and the students are comrades, 
the former merely having the prestige of a supe- 
rior age, a riper thought, and a more extended 
knowledge. It is a delightful society. 

The student makes funny mistakes sometimes, 
but sees them quickly and laughs as heartily as 
his associates. They are not such mistakes as 
those compiled in the Young Idea. He has 
never been asked to take unquestioningly and 
repeat inanely. Somewhere in the primary 
school the " object " of the day was a picture, in 
one of the Third Readers, of a boy that sacri- 
ficed a prize in penmanship by telling the truth. 
" How old, children, do you think the boy ap- 
pears to be ? " asked the teacher. " About 
twenty-four," gravely replied a pupil. The 



138 The Coming School. 

teacher was of those who thought he looked 
about fourteen or sixteen. " Is that his age as 
represented in the story ? " was the next ques- 
tion. " No, ma'am ! the picture is wrong," was 
the confident reply. Thus the very faults in the 
school material had been made for him stepping- 
stones to culture. Somewhere in the secondary 
school, when the " subject " was grammar, he 
had studied, " a finite verb must agree with its 
subject or nominative in person and number." 
"A finite verb ; finite — a new word ; infinite, un- 
limited ; finite, limited ; limited by what ?" " A 
finite verb mtist agree (ha ! the limitation) with 
its subject in person and number." A verb in 
the infinitive mode has no subject and no person 
and number. A finite verb has, and must agree — 
Hurrah ! I have it all. A finite verb, having a 
subject, must agree with it in person and num- 
ber. That is why it is finite. I wonder if the 
other fellows looked in the dictionary. It would 
have been shorter, but less fun ! " 

Not a doubt as to whether " the other fellows" 
found out at all or conned empty words ! Their 
habits of study were too well established before 
the teacher ever trusted them with the rules of 
syntax. Now he is ready to study the syllogism 
and discovers its laws with the help of a few 
leading questions from the master of logic ; 
ready to agree or disagree tentatively with Sir 
William Hamilton or with Aristotle himself ; 
ready and willing to labor through the maze of 



The Coming School. 139 

the Greek alphabet and pull himself along 
through the increasing delights and growing 
difficulties of Platonic Greek, to find out, " first 
hand," whether Plato did or did not admit the 
mental equality of the sexes. Enviable leisure ! 
Enviable occupations ! Enviable surroundings ! 
Enviable tastes and enthusiasms ! 

But what has all this to do with the common 
people ? Precious little, except in so far as these 
students put their pleasures into concrete form 
and hand them down. 



PART IV.— SPECIAL EDUCATION. 



PURSUITS. 

Of course the coming school will equip its 
pupils with a means of making a livelihood. 
There will be the art school, the conservatory 
of music, the college of law, the medical college, 
the sewing and cooking school, the institute for 
carpenters, builders, and architects, schools for 
surveyors, civil engineers, machinists, etc., etc. 
There will certainly be Normal Colleges. 

It is not likely that the State will support any 
of these special schools, unless the necessities 
of its own preservation compel it to distinguish 
in favor of some one or more. If doctors, edu- 
cated at private expense, become scarce, it will 
probably find it advisable to educate a few at 
its own — and so with the other professions and 
other industrial vocations. The only special 
school that is likely to be always a charge upon 
the State is the Normal College. So many teach- 
ers are needed, so few parents are willing, even 
if able, to properly educate their daughters as 

140 



The Coming School. 141 

they educate their sons, for the learned profes- 
sions ; and it would be the poorest economy, 
would even plunge us back into the barbarism 
of the nineteenth century, to employ untrained 
teachers. Besides, the State realizes that the 
more it educates its girls for teachers, the more 
it educates them for mothers, should they avail 
themselves of the feminine privilege of changing 
their minds. From every point of view the part 
of wisdom in the apportionment of public mo- 
neys is to make a liberal allowance to Normal 
Colleges. 

The students at these Special Schools, whether 
they come from the Secondary or Tertiary'School 
below, will come in the full possession of their 
faculties. The medical student will wield the 
scalpel with delicacy and precision and will have 
a quick apprehension for all Latin terms that 
have English relatives. He will not enjoy 
memorizing Gray's Anatomy, and perhaps he 
will not have to memorize it. The writer does- 
not feel authorized to state whether he will or 
not ; but this may be said with confidence : If 
he has to do it he will do it, for he has not passed 
through" the lower schools without acquiring the 
habit of cheerful application for a worthy end. 

The normal student will come somewhat pre- 
pared for her professional study. She has ob- 
served all her life — observed everything around 
her, even children ; and her habit of tracing- 
effects back to causes has led her to sound their 



142 The Coming School. 

fickle little motives with more or less skill. 
Another habit, that of analogous reasoning, has 
led her to study herself somewhat, that she might 
understand them better. With this initiatory 
practice in introspection and the perhaps not 
consciously recorded results of her other human 
observations, she comes to her new course of 
study quite a psychologist to start with. It need 
not be suggested how delightful she finds a con- 
scious and systematic continuance of this highest 
of all subjects of human investigation. 

There will be few or none in these Special 
Schools who have " mistaken their vocation ; " 
few who are determined to teach and can't teach, 
determined to be lawyers and can't question, de- 
termined to be architects and can't cipher. The 
Primary School gave them the general develop- 
ment necessary for the production of common 
sense aud a fair power of discrimination between 
success and failure, even with self the actor. 
The Secondary School supplemented and 
strengthened this general culture, and gave, 
besides, ample play for the growth of special 
powers. The graduate of the Secondary School 
knew pretty well what his life occupation should 
be. 

And the graduate of the Special School will 
carry on that occupation in sober earnestness. 
He will work while he works and play while he 
plays. He will be merry and sympathetic — alive 
to all impressions. He will enjoy dancing as 



The Coming School. 143 

much as he does philosophy or a lovely sky. 
He will give up an evening's amusement with- 
out a murmur when duty or compassion calls 
him. He will know but few temptations to 
dangerous pastimes, and will resist those few. 
He will Be fully and always engaged, with work 
or harmless pleasure. Having studied all things 
with " an insight," he will have an insight into 
his children's characters and what is best for 
them, and will be an able helpmeet for his wife 
in bringing them up. He will be strong in times 
of suffering, and, should his dearest treasures 
be taken from him, he will find some compen- 
sation. He will get the most out of life and be 
of the greatest possible service to his race. 



CONCLUSION. 



To sum up : 

i. The Coming School will recognize a period 
of Primary education, extending from the age 
of kindergarten to that of twelve or fourteen, in 
which the general powers of the individual will 
be developed for active use in work and enjoy- 
ment, the habits of a rational, useful, and happy 
life will be formed, the mental and moral tastes 
developed, the rudimentary acquirements neces- 
sary to the conduct of a personal career in civil- 
ization gained, and sufficient knowledge gathered 
to unlock the store-rooms of literature, art, and 
science for the pupil. The only possible way to 
do all this is by the study of Objects. 

2. It will establish a Secondary period of 
three to six years, in which the knowledge 
already gained shall be classified under the 
heads of science and art, the " Subjects " shall 
be taught by specialists, the particular talent of 
the individual shall receive due culture, and the 
pupil shall be enabled to choose his life vocation. 

3. A Tertiary period of indefinite duration, for 

144 



The Coming School. 145 

the leisurely, in which the delights of higher 
thought shall be enjoyed, the treasures of 
Greece and Rome unlocked, the secrets of the 
past brought to light, and these things made more 
generally available than at present to those below. 

4. A Special period of perhaps two years, 
which may or may not take the place of the 
Tertiary, and during which the student will fit 
himself for the support of self and family. 

5. The first interests of the entire population 
will be bound up in the Primary school, and a 
large portion of the community will be directly 
interested in the Secondary as well. These two, 
then, will be maintained at public expense. 

6. The Tertiary school will be a luxury for 
those that can afford it, and will probably be 
supported by private fees and endowments. 

7. If any of the vocations fail to be sufficiently 
supplied at private expense, it will be a duty of the 
government to fill its ranks by means of free schol- 
arships. This will be especially true of teaching. 

8. In the Existing School there is a surprising 
amount of incidental good. Teachers make a 
point here and touch a heart there with a beau- 
tiful zeal that the aridity around them can not 
quite quench. Even the Formalist, so badly 
treated on these pages, has done the best he 
knew how. The vital thing is for the public to 
see that the system is on its head, and that it 
can not make much upward growth while in 
that position. Also that this unnatural posture 



146 The Coming School. 

of the people's own dearest institution can not 
be changed until political boards of education give 
place to prof essional boards of education. 

I can not more fittingly close this effort to 
" hasten history " than by a tribute to the really 
wonderful progress that has been made by the 
schools of " my own dear, native town " during 
the past ten years. Two successive Superin- 
tendents fought hard for mercy, if not justice, 
to the little ones, and the fruit of their combined 
efforts no one knows but the teacher who, six- 
teen years ago, "taught " a hundred and ninety- 
eight poor little innocents, huddled together on 
crowded benches, in a dark and ill-ventilated 
basement room, and who lately returned to the 
baby-work to see before her a class of fifty-five 
smiling little faces, each above a polished desk 
of its very own ! 

Two successive Superintendents, one long cold 
in his grave, but who once carried a heart throb- 
bing with warm pity for those injured little ones, 
have accomplished this, and a third now hints 
at kindergartens ! What next ? 



THE END. 



"THE YOUNG IDEA" 

OR 

Common School Culture. 

BY 
CAROLINE B. LE ROW, 

Compiler of " English as She is Taught" etc. 

Boards, flexible, new style, 50 cents. 
Extra Cloth, Gilt Top, etc., $1.00. 

"A sound and sensible little treatise on common school 
education, by a writer thoroughly familiar with the sub- 
ject." — N. Y. Sun. 

''Warranted to drive away the blues." — Albany Argus. 

"Every teacher and school director should read it." — 
Yale Courant. 

"One of the best ways to work reform." — Cleveland 
Leader. 

"One of the brightest and most amusing of educational 
arguments." — Cin. Commercial Gazette. 

"The lady who has with much labor compiled this little 
book has done a genuine service to the cause of educational 
reform. " — Science. 

"This book beats any jest-book 'all hollow.' The absur- 
dities of these extracts are so delicious that one cannot 
help laughing at them until his sides are sore ; and yet they 
are as sad as they are funny." — The A r . Y. Examiner. 



CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

104-10G FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



UNLIMITED FTJN! 

MARK TWAIN SAYS : " It is a darling literary curiosity." 

ENGLISH AS SHE IS 
TAUGHT. 

Genuine answers to Examination Questions in our Public Schools. 
Collected by one who has had many years' experience. 

For glaring absurdities, for humorous errors, for the great 
possibilities of the English language, see this book. 



Cloth, Gilt Top, Uncut Edges, • Price, $1.00 

Boards, Flexible, (new style), - - Priee, .50 



FROM " TOPICS OF THE TIME " IN APRIL " CENTURY." 

41 Nothing could be more amusing than the unconscious humor of 
4 English as She is Taught' yet where is the thoughtful reader whose 
laughter is not followed by something like dismay ? Here are examination 
papers taken from many schools, evolved from many brains ; yet are they 
so like character that all might be the work of one puzzled school-boy 
struggling with matters too deep for him." 

44 A side-splitting compilation." — Pall Mall Gazette, London. 

44 More to laugh over than any book of its size ever published." — Boston 
Times. 

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

104 & 106 Fourth Avenue, New York 



JOHN BULL, Jr., 



OR 



French as She is Traduced. 

By MAX O'RELL, 

AUTHOR OF 
JONATHAN AND HIS CONTINENT. 

With a Preface by George C. Eggleston. 

Boards,, flexible ; price, 50 cents. Cloth, gilt top, unique, 
$1.00. 

" There is not a page in this delightful little volume that 
does not sparkle." — Phila. Press. 

"One expects Max O'Rell to be distinctively funny, 
He is regarded as a French Mark Twain." — The Beacon. 

" The whole theory of education is to be extracted from 
these humorous sketches." — Baltimore American. 

"A volume which is bubbling over with brightness, and 
is pervaded with wholesome common sense." — N. Y. Com. 
Advertiser. 

"May be placed among those favored volumes whose 
interest is not exhausted by one perusal, but which may be 
taken up again with a renewal of the entertainment afforded 
by the first reading." — Boston Gazette. 



CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

104-106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



JONATHAN 



-AND— 



HIS CONTINENT. 



RAMBLES THROUGH AMERICAN SOCIETY. 

BY 

MAX O'RELL 

Author of " John Bull and His Island," M John 
Bull, Jr." etc., 

AND 

JACK ALLYN, 

Translated by Madame PAUL BlouSt. 
In One Elegant 12mo Volume, Price, $1.50. 

Max O'Rell in this volume of impressions of America and the 
Americans gives us the brightest and best work he has yet done. 
While often severe, he is always kind. He makes a number of state- 
ments, however, that are going to call forth contradictions in various 
quarters, and are likely to stir up some strong criticisms. Altogether, 
the book is very lively reading, and will, unquestionably, excite the 
interest of every American citizen who wants to know what a keen- 
eyed, intelligent, and witty Frenchman has to say of him and of his 
country. 



CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

104—106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



020 972 240 9 



